The Faroese Septuagenarians cohort: A comparison of well-being before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among older home-dwelling Faroese.
Scand J Public Health
; 50(1): 136-143, 2022 Feb.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1501952
ABSTRACT
AIMS:
Despite success in avoiding morbidity and mortality in the oldest members of the population during the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis may have affected the well-being of older adults, for example due to social distancing measures. The aim of this study was to examine the well-being of older Faroese by conducting a direct comparison of well-being indicators on the same group of elderly people before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.METHODS:
Data were collected from 227 home-dwelling adults aged 82-86 years from the Faroese Septuagenarians cohort. The pre-COVID-19 period was from December 2017 to January 2019, and the COVID-19 period was from 8 June to 15 July 2020. Three aspects of well-being were assessed loneliness, self-rated health and quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF).RESULTS:
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were significant increases in loneliness (21.8% vs. 6.8%; p<0.001) and in worse self-rated health compared to the previous year (37.2% vs. 19.0%; p<0.001). In terms of quality of life, the domains of overall quality of life (74.33±14.96 vs. 71.88±15.21; p=0.04) and physical health (73.81±17.11 vs. 71.66±17.37; p=0.03) deteriorated. On the other hand, the domains of social relationships (78.87±16.52 vs. 85.81±13.35; p<0.001), environment (82.49±10.78 vs. 87.06±7.88; p<0.001) and psychological health (77.07±11.52 vs. 80.53±10.89; p<0.001) improved during the pandemic.CONCLUSIONS:
Our findings suggest that attention should be directed to loneliness and physical well-being amongst home-dwelling old adults, despite the elderly showed resilience and improved psychological health, social relations and environment domains in a quality of life assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pandemics
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Aged
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Scand J Public Health
Journal subject:
Social Medicine
/
Public Health
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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