ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2022
Physical isolation and mental health among older US adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: longitudinal findings from the COVID-19 Coping Study.
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 35 citations in OpenAlex.
- Subjective Stress Appraisals Over Time: the Evolving Structure of the COVID-19 Stressor Scale.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2026Article
- Psychological resilience trajectories after the COVID-19 pandemic: the role of lifestyle and psychosocial factors in a cohort at increased alzheimer's disease risk.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Depressive Symptoms Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Veteran Nursing Home Residents.International journal of geriatric psychiatry · 2025Article
- Experiences of critical care nurses infected with COVID-19 in a Saudi Academic Hospital.Curationis · 2025Article
- Exploring the association of social isolation and loneliness on the experience of COVID-19 infection and hospitalization in the Japanese population: the JACSIS study.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Article
- COVID-19 and Mental Distress and Well-Being Among Older People: A Gender Analysis in the First and Last Year of the Pandemic and in the Post-Pandemic Period.Geriatrics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Comparative Analysis of Restorative Interior Design Elements: Screen-Based Versus Virtual Reality Evaluations for Future Medical Treatment Prospects.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- The interaction of disease transmission, mortality, and economic output over the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic.PloS one · 2024Article
- Takotsubo syndrome before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Austria: a retrospective cohort study (TOSCA-19).ESC heart failure · 2023Article
- The Effect of Daily Meditative Practices Based on Mindfulness and Self-Compassion on Emotional Distress under Stressful Conditions: A Randomized Controlled Trial.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2023Article
- Emotional wellbeing and coping among Latinx young adults in the time of COVID-19.Journal of community psychology · 2023Article
- Using Social Media for Social Motives Moderates the Relationship between Post-Traumatic Symptoms during a COVID-19-Related Lockdown and Improvement of Distress after Lockdown.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Changes in social isolation and loneliness prevalence during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: The JACSIS 2020-2021 study.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- The trajectory of psychological well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic and its association with health-promoting coping behavior among Japanese community-dwelling older adults: The Otassha Study.Experimental gerontology · 2023Review
- A fast online questionnaire for screening mental illness symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic.Translational psychiatry · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purposeWe investigated the relationships between physical isolation at home during the period when many US states had shelter-in-place orders and subsequent longitudinal trajectories of depression, anxiety, and loneliness in older adults over a 6 month follow-up.
methodsData were from monthly online questionnaires with US adults aged ≥ 55 in the nation-wide COVID-19 Coping Study (April through October 2020, N = 3978). Physical isolation was defined as not leaving home except for essential purposes (0, 1-3, 4-6, and 7 days in the past week), measured at baseline (April-May). Outcomes were depressive symptoms (8-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale), anxiety symptoms (5-item Beck Anxiety Inventory), and loneliness (3-item UCLA loneliness scale), measured monthly (April-October). Multivariable, population- and attrition-weighted linear mixed-effects models assessed the relationships between baseline physical isolation with mental health symptoms at baseline and over time.
resultsPhysical isolation (7 days versus 0 days in the past week) was associated with elevated depressive symptoms (adjusted β = 0.85; 95% CI 0.10-1.60), anxiety symptoms (adjusted β = 1.22; 95% CI 0.45-1.98), and loneliness (adjusted β = 1.06; 95% CI 0.51-1.61) at baseline, but not with meaningful rate of change in these mental health outcomes over time. The symptom burden of each mental health outcome increased with increasing past-week frequency of physical isolation.
conclusionDuring the early COVID-19 pandemic, physical isolation was associated with elevated depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and loneliness, which persisted over time. These findings highlight the unique and persistent mental health risks of physical isolation at home under pandemic control measures.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.