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Varied and unexpected changes in the well-being of seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Recent evidence suggests that psychological health deteriorated during the COVID-19 pandemic but far less is known about changes in other measures of well-being. We examined changes in a broad set of measures of well-being among seniors just before and after the recognition of community spread of CO...

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Autores principales: Barcellos, Silvia, Jacobson, Mireille, Stone, Arthur A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8211190/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34138938
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252962
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author Barcellos, Silvia
Jacobson, Mireille
Stone, Arthur A.
author_facet Barcellos, Silvia
Jacobson, Mireille
Stone, Arthur A.
author_sort Barcellos, Silvia
collection PubMed
description Recent evidence suggests that psychological health deteriorated during the COVID-19 pandemic but far less is known about changes in other measures of well-being. We examined changes in a broad set of measures of well-being among seniors just before and after the recognition of community spread of COVID-19 in the United States. We fielded two waves of a survey to a large, national online panel of adults ages 60 to 68 at wave 1. We measured depressive symptoms, negative affect, positive affect, pain, life satisfaction and self-rated health in each survey wave. 16,644 adults answered well-being questions in waves 1 and 2 of our survey (mean[SD]: age 64 [2.6]; 10,165 women [61%]; 15,161 [91%] white). We found large (20%; p<0.001) increases in the rate of depressive symptoms (1.4 percentage points; 95% CI, 0.97 to 1.86) and negative mood (0.225 scale points; 95% CI, 0.205 to 0.245) but no change in self-reported health and a decrease (12.5%; p<0.001) in the rate of self-reported pain (5 percentage points; 95% CI, -5.8 to -4.3). Depressive symptoms and negative affect increased more for women. Higher perceived risk of getting COVID-19 and of dying from the disease were associated with larger increases in the rate of depressive symptoms and negative affect and larger decreases in positive affect and life satsifaction. COVID-19 related job/income loss was the only pandemic-related factor predictive of the decline in pain. Although depressive symptoms and mood worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, other measures of well-being were either not materially affected or even improved.
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spelling pubmed-82111902021-06-29 Varied and unexpected changes in the well-being of seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic Barcellos, Silvia Jacobson, Mireille Stone, Arthur A. PLoS One Research Article Recent evidence suggests that psychological health deteriorated during the COVID-19 pandemic but far less is known about changes in other measures of well-being. We examined changes in a broad set of measures of well-being among seniors just before and after the recognition of community spread of COVID-19 in the United States. We fielded two waves of a survey to a large, national online panel of adults ages 60 to 68 at wave 1. We measured depressive symptoms, negative affect, positive affect, pain, life satisfaction and self-rated health in each survey wave. 16,644 adults answered well-being questions in waves 1 and 2 of our survey (mean[SD]: age 64 [2.6]; 10,165 women [61%]; 15,161 [91%] white). We found large (20%; p<0.001) increases in the rate of depressive symptoms (1.4 percentage points; 95% CI, 0.97 to 1.86) and negative mood (0.225 scale points; 95% CI, 0.205 to 0.245) but no change in self-reported health and a decrease (12.5%; p<0.001) in the rate of self-reported pain (5 percentage points; 95% CI, -5.8 to -4.3). Depressive symptoms and negative affect increased more for women. Higher perceived risk of getting COVID-19 and of dying from the disease were associated with larger increases in the rate of depressive symptoms and negative affect and larger decreases in positive affect and life satsifaction. COVID-19 related job/income loss was the only pandemic-related factor predictive of the decline in pain. Although depressive symptoms and mood worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, other measures of well-being were either not materially affected or even improved. Public Library of Science 2021-06-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8211190/ /pubmed/34138938 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252962 Text en © 2021 Barcellos et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Barcellos, Silvia
Jacobson, Mireille
Stone, Arthur A.
Varied and unexpected changes in the well-being of seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic
title Varied and unexpected changes in the well-being of seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full Varied and unexpected changes in the well-being of seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic
title_fullStr Varied and unexpected changes in the well-being of seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Varied and unexpected changes in the well-being of seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic
title_short Varied and unexpected changes in the well-being of seniors in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic
title_sort varied and unexpected changes in the well-being of seniors in the united states amid the covid-19 pandemic
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8211190/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34138938
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252962
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