Psychological Burden among Community-dwelling Older Adults with and without a History of a Recent Covid-19 Infection.

OBJECTIVES

The outbreak of Covid-19's psychological burden to recovered vs. non-infected older individuals has not been compared yet. We aimed to perform a comparative analysis of psychological symptoms in community-dwelling older adults with and without a history of a Covid-19 infection.

METHODS

In this study, we utilized a geriatric care unit's outpatient registry to prospectively enroll older adults with and without a history of Covid-19. An interviewer administered generalized anxiety disorder-2 (GAD-2), patient health questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2), six-item cognitive impairment (6-CIT), and post-traumatic stress disorder-5 (PTSD-5) tests over the phone. Correlation and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to examine associations.

RESULTS

The study included 120 older subjects, 46 (38.3%) reported past Covid-19 infection. Anxiety and depression were both significantly more prevalent among subjects without a history of Covid-19. Having no history of Covid-19, female gender, and psychoactive medication use showed independent associations with the risk of depression symptoms among all subjects, and female gender was additionally associated with anxiety symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

This study showed that the risk of depression symptoms was higher in a sample of older adults who were not infected with Covid-19 compared to those recovering from the disease.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: The impact of "fear of transmission" on the mental health of the elderly may be a significant issue to deal with. Older women are more prone to mental health risks by Covid-19.