ArticleFrontiers in public health2022
Decline in Mental Health in the Beginning of the COVID-19 Outbreak Among European Older Adults-Associations With Social Factors, Infection Rates, and Government Response.
Article in Frontiers in public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analysis of factors influencing depression in the elderly before and after the COVID-19 pandemic in 2023.BMC geriatrics · 2026Pooled it
- Better Sleep Better Psychological Well-Being Among Older Adults: Evidence From the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS).Journal of aging research · 2026Article
- Potentially traumatic life events and mental health conditions. Identifying the role of resilience in a cross-sectional study from Northwestern Germany.International journal of public health · 2026Article
- Social isolation, loneliness, and positive affect before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in very old adults living in Germany: a quasi-experimental multi-sample study.BMC geriatrics · 2025Article
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global burden of mental disorders: a counterfactual modeling study from 1990 to 2021.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Evaluating changes in the well-being of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal cohort study.European journal of public health · 2024Article
- Changes in hair cortisol in a New Zealand community sample during the Covid-19 pandemic.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2024Article
- The family as provider of intergenerational support during COVID-19: a study into the mental health consequences for 65+ Europeans.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Worsened self-rated health in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic among older adults in Europe.European journal of public health · 2023Article
- Individual preferences, government policy, and COVID-19: A game-theoretic epidemiological analysis.Applied mathematical modelling · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: Governments across the world have deployed a wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Certain NPIs, like limiting social contacts or lockdowns, had negative consequences for mental health in the population. Especially elder people are prone to mental illnesses during the current pandemic. This article investigates how social factors, infections rates, and stringency of NPIs are associated with a decline in mental health in different European countries. Methods: Data stem from the eighth wave of the SHARE survey. Additional data sources were used to build macro indicators for infection rates and NPIs. Two subsamples of persons with mental health problems were selected (people who reported being depressed, Results: Higher age was associated with a lower likelihood of becoming more depressed (OR 0.87) or nervous/anxious (OR 0.88), while female gender increased the odds of a decline in mental health (OR 1.53 for being more depressed; OR 1.57 for being more nervous/anxious). Higher education was only associated with becoming more nervous/anxious (OR 1.59), while living alone or rare personal contacts were not statistically significant. People from countries with higher infection rates were more likely to become more depressed (OR 3.31) or nervous/anxious (OR 4.12), while stringency of NPIs showed inconsistent associations. Conclusion: A majority of European older adults showed a decline in mental health since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. This is especially true in countries with high prevalence rates of COVID-19. Among older European adults, age seems to be a protective factor for a decline in mental health while female gender apparently is a risk factor. Moreover, although NPIs are an essential preventative mechanism to reduce the pandemic spread, they might influence the vulnerability for elderly people suffering from mental health problems.
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