Effect of loneliness and sociodemographic, health, COVID-19 pandemic-related factors on depression among older adults

ABSTRACT

The present study aimed to identify the presence of depression in older adults and the affecting factors during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-sectional study was conducted online with 1320 deliberately recruited older adults in Turkey between February and May 2021. The variables were depression, loneliness, fear of COVID-19, and other sociodemographic health variables. In the study, we used the Geriatric Depression Scale, Loneliness Scale, and the Fear of COVID-19 Scale and RLa form including items inquiring information about sociodemographic and COVID-19 related characteristics and health conditions of the participants. In this study, we detected probable-definite depression in 73.8% of the participants. According to the results of multiple logistic regression analysis, we concluded that social and emotional loneliness, increased fear of COVID-19, perceived insufficient income, presence of chronic disease, managing activities of daily living only with assistance, irregular sleep and diet patterns, future anxiety, alcohol use, perception of mental health being negatively affected by the pandemic, and living in regions outside the Mediterranean Region affected the state of probable-definite depression in the participants. Depression was high in older adults during the pandemic. Psychosocial and health promotion interventions for depression risk factors determined from multivariate regression analysis, may enable older adults, who have become more vulnerable due to the restriction measures applied during the COVID-19 pandemic, to be less affected by this period.