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Resilience and coping strategies of older adults in Hong Kong during COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study

BACKGROUND: Despite the adverse physical health impact of COVID-19 on older adults, whether they are psychosocially vulnerable under the pandemic remains debatable. In this mixed methods study, we examined the psychosocial vulnerability of older adults relative to their younger counterparts and expl...

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Autores principales: Chan, Siu-Ming, Chung, Gary Ka-Ki, Chan, Yat-Hang, Chung, Roger Yat-Nork, Wong, Hung, Yeoh, Eng Kiong, Woo, Jean
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8990565/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35395718
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-022-03009-3
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author Chan, Siu-Ming
Chung, Gary Ka-Ki
Chan, Yat-Hang
Chung, Roger Yat-Nork
Wong, Hung
Yeoh, Eng Kiong
Woo, Jean
author_facet Chan, Siu-Ming
Chung, Gary Ka-Ki
Chan, Yat-Hang
Chung, Roger Yat-Nork
Wong, Hung
Yeoh, Eng Kiong
Woo, Jean
author_sort Chan, Siu-Ming
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Despite the adverse physical health impact of COVID-19 on older adults, whether they are psychosocially vulnerable under the pandemic remains debatable. In this mixed methods study, we examined the psychosocial vulnerability of older adults relative to their younger counterparts and explored how they coped with the pandemic. METHODS: From September to October 2020, 1067 adults in Hong Kong were randomly sampled and completed a telephone survey, whereas 10 older adults were recruited for individual interviews between September 2020 and April 2021. Quantitative measurements included subjective well-being, worries about COVID-19, and changes in social capital and social interaction since the pandemic. The transcribed qualitative data were closely read and summarized using thematic analyses. RESULTS: Compared with younger adults, older adults tended to be less worried about COVID-19 infection and economic activity/livelihood, despite being slightly more worried about supplies of personal protective equipment. They also had better subjective well-being in terms of happiness and life satisfaction, with their social capital and social interaction less affected. In addition, five themes emerged from the qualitative interviews: (1) life philosophy; (2) economic security; (3) telecommunication; (4) role of community organizations and social workers; and (5) positive coping strategies. CONCLUSIONS: Older adults in this study showed better psychosocial well-being than their younger counterparts under the COVID-19 pandemic, which challenged the deeply rooted societal stereotype about the vulnerability of older adults. The stronger resilience for positive coping, technological assistance, and targeted government and community support may have protected older adults from distress during the pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-89905652022-04-09 Resilience and coping strategies of older adults in Hong Kong during COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study Chan, Siu-Ming Chung, Gary Ka-Ki Chan, Yat-Hang Chung, Roger Yat-Nork Wong, Hung Yeoh, Eng Kiong Woo, Jean BMC Geriatr Research BACKGROUND: Despite the adverse physical health impact of COVID-19 on older adults, whether they are psychosocially vulnerable under the pandemic remains debatable. In this mixed methods study, we examined the psychosocial vulnerability of older adults relative to their younger counterparts and explored how they coped with the pandemic. METHODS: From September to October 2020, 1067 adults in Hong Kong were randomly sampled and completed a telephone survey, whereas 10 older adults were recruited for individual interviews between September 2020 and April 2021. Quantitative measurements included subjective well-being, worries about COVID-19, and changes in social capital and social interaction since the pandemic. The transcribed qualitative data were closely read and summarized using thematic analyses. RESULTS: Compared with younger adults, older adults tended to be less worried about COVID-19 infection and economic activity/livelihood, despite being slightly more worried about supplies of personal protective equipment. They also had better subjective well-being in terms of happiness and life satisfaction, with their social capital and social interaction less affected. In addition, five themes emerged from the qualitative interviews: (1) life philosophy; (2) economic security; (3) telecommunication; (4) role of community organizations and social workers; and (5) positive coping strategies. CONCLUSIONS: Older adults in this study showed better psychosocial well-being than their younger counterparts under the COVID-19 pandemic, which challenged the deeply rooted societal stereotype about the vulnerability of older adults. The stronger resilience for positive coping, technological assistance, and targeted government and community support may have protected older adults from distress during the pandemic. BioMed Central 2022-04-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8990565/ /pubmed/35395718 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-022-03009-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Chan, Siu-Ming
Chung, Gary Ka-Ki
Chan, Yat-Hang
Chung, Roger Yat-Nork
Wong, Hung
Yeoh, Eng Kiong
Woo, Jean
Resilience and coping strategies of older adults in Hong Kong during COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study
title Resilience and coping strategies of older adults in Hong Kong during COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study
title_full Resilience and coping strategies of older adults in Hong Kong during COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study
title_fullStr Resilience and coping strategies of older adults in Hong Kong during COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study
title_full_unstemmed Resilience and coping strategies of older adults in Hong Kong during COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study
title_short Resilience and coping strategies of older adults in Hong Kong during COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study
title_sort resilience and coping strategies of older adults in hong kong during covid-19 pandemic: a mixed methods study
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8990565/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35395718
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-022-03009-3
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