P.0876 Perceived stress during COVID-19 confinement in elderly participants with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia: a cross-sectional study

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Covid-19 disease forced the Spanish government to declare a national state of alarm implementing restrictive measures such as lockdown, social distancing and stay at home measures. These measures can be related to negative consequences on mental health and stress increase in elderly people with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia. Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore the impact of this strict confinement and to analyze factors associated with perceived stress on community-dwelling older adults with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This study was conducted in Málaga a Spanish region of Andalucía. In total 143 elderly participants (>55 years old) with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia, from the SMART 4 MD (n=69) and TV-AssistDem (n=74) randomized clinical trial (RCT), were interviewed by telephone between May 11 and June 25 2020. Participants were contacted by telephone by 5 health professionals (two Neuropsychologists, a Clinical Psychologist, a Psychologist and a Psychiatric and Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist). Researchers had previously established relationships with participants during both RCTs. The mean time from the start of the lockdown and home-confinement measures to the interview was 70.93 days (SD=12.36, Range 52-102). Perceived stress was assessed with the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14). Depression (Geriatric Depression Scale), cognition (Mini-Mental State Examination-22), quality of life (Quality of Life-Alzheimer's Disease Scale), health status (EuroQoL-5D-3L) and other variables (specific structured questionary) were also measured. To analyze the factors associated with perceived stress linear regression models were used. R version 4.0.4 program was used for statistical analysis. Results: Of the respondents, 94/143 (65.7%) were women. The mean age was 74.12 years (SD 6.49), and 36/143 (25.2%) lived alone. 66/143 (46.48%) participants were worried and 33/143 (23.24%) were afraid at the time of the evaluation. Perceived stress was negatively associated with change in living arrangement (B=-4.89;p<0.05), feeling well (B=-7.88;p<0.001), feeling calm (B=-3.12;p<0.05), quality of life (B=-1.02;p<0.001) and health status (B=-0.20);p<0.001) and positively associated with feeling sad (B=7.32;p<0.001), feeling worried (B=6.45;p<0.001), feeling afraid (B=7.77;p<0.001), feeling anxious (B=10.44;p<0.001), feeling bored (B=6.77;p<0.001), sleep disturbances (B=5.49;p<0.01) and score of depression (B=1.83;p<0.001). Discussion: Surprisingly, the score of perceived stress was similar to other studies with comparable samples1,2. The strict confinement seems not to have affected this population significantly regarding perceived stress. Less perceived stress was associated with wellbeing and better quality of life. More perceived stress was associated with less mental health and sleep disturbances. A change in living arrangements was negatively correlated with perceived stress, probably due to the increase in family support. More studies are necessary to evaluate the long-term consequences of COVID-19 restricted measures in perceived stress and mental health in this vulnerable population. No conflict of interest