Impact of COVID-19 on the social relationships and mental health of older adults living alone: A two-year prospective cohort study.

Abstract

BackgroundOwing to the COVID-19 outbreak, older adults living alone, who can only connect socially outside their homes, are at risk of social isolation and poor mental health. This study aimed to identify the changes, before and after COVID-19, by sex and age, in social relationships (social activity, social network, and social support) and mental health (depression and suicide ideation) among older adults living alone.MethodsThis is a prospective cohort study of community-dwelling older adults who were at least 65 years old and living alone in South Korea. The study was conducted during 2018-2020 with 2,291 participants (795, 771, and 725 for the 1st to 3rd waves, respectively). The data were collected via face-to-face interviews. A generalized linear mixed modeling framework was used to test for changes over three years.ResultsSocial activity was reduced after the COVID-19, with an interaction effect of sex: older women (odds ratio [OR], 0.19; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.15-0.23; p ConclusionsThe findings provide health administrators and health providers with explorative insights into the impact of the COVID-19 on social relationships and mental health among older adults living alone and can guide further studies of interventions considering specific properties of social relationships.