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Gender and Psychosocial Differences in Psychological Resilience among a Community of Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The study aimed at exploring gender and additional sociodemographic differences in psychological resilience, as well as the association between resilience and psychological distress in older adults, during the first lockdown in Italy, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants attended an online sur...

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Autores principales: Sardella, Alberto, Lenzo, Vittorio, Basile, Giorgio, Musetti, Alessandro, Franceschini, Christian, Quattropani, Maria C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9504613/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36143198
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jpm12091414
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author Sardella, Alberto
Lenzo, Vittorio
Basile, Giorgio
Musetti, Alessandro
Franceschini, Christian
Quattropani, Maria C.
author_facet Sardella, Alberto
Lenzo, Vittorio
Basile, Giorgio
Musetti, Alessandro
Franceschini, Christian
Quattropani, Maria C.
author_sort Sardella, Alberto
collection PubMed
description The study aimed at exploring gender and additional sociodemographic differences in psychological resilience, as well as the association between resilience and psychological distress in older adults, during the first lockdown in Italy, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants attended an online survey during the first lockdown in May 2020. Psychological distress was assessed through the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21, the Resilience Scale (RS) was administered to evaluate psychological resilience, and sociodemographic variables were also collected. The study involved 108 community older adults (mean age 70.02 ± 3.5 years). Comparisons revealed that women reported significantly lower total scores of RS (p = 0.027), as well as lower levels of resilience-related domains, namely Meaningfulness (p = 0.049), Self-Reliance (p = 0.011), Perseverance (p = 0.035), and Existential Aloneness (p = 0.014), compared to men. Significantly higher RS scores were found in older adults being involved in a relationship, compared to those not involved in relationships (p = 0.026), and in older adults with children (p = 0.015), compared to those without offspring, suggesting the importance for older adults of not dealing alone with such a dramatic and stressful event, such as the pandemic. Negative correlations were found between psychological resilience and stress, depression, and anxiety. Linear regressions revealed that lower RS total scores, as well as lower scores in the majority of the RS scales, were associated with greater levels of stress, greater levels of anxiety, and greater levels of depressive symptoms. This study suggested that older women might appear more vulnerable in facing the pandemic, compared to men; having not lived alone through the lockdown period might also be considered as a factor of resilience for older adults.
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spelling pubmed-95046132022-09-24 Gender and Psychosocial Differences in Psychological Resilience among a Community of Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic Sardella, Alberto Lenzo, Vittorio Basile, Giorgio Musetti, Alessandro Franceschini, Christian Quattropani, Maria C. J Pers Med Article The study aimed at exploring gender and additional sociodemographic differences in psychological resilience, as well as the association between resilience and psychological distress in older adults, during the first lockdown in Italy, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants attended an online survey during the first lockdown in May 2020. Psychological distress was assessed through the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21, the Resilience Scale (RS) was administered to evaluate psychological resilience, and sociodemographic variables were also collected. The study involved 108 community older adults (mean age 70.02 ± 3.5 years). Comparisons revealed that women reported significantly lower total scores of RS (p = 0.027), as well as lower levels of resilience-related domains, namely Meaningfulness (p = 0.049), Self-Reliance (p = 0.011), Perseverance (p = 0.035), and Existential Aloneness (p = 0.014), compared to men. Significantly higher RS scores were found in older adults being involved in a relationship, compared to those not involved in relationships (p = 0.026), and in older adults with children (p = 0.015), compared to those without offspring, suggesting the importance for older adults of not dealing alone with such a dramatic and stressful event, such as the pandemic. Negative correlations were found between psychological resilience and stress, depression, and anxiety. Linear regressions revealed that lower RS total scores, as well as lower scores in the majority of the RS scales, were associated with greater levels of stress, greater levels of anxiety, and greater levels of depressive symptoms. This study suggested that older women might appear more vulnerable in facing the pandemic, compared to men; having not lived alone through the lockdown period might also be considered as a factor of resilience for older adults. MDPI 2022-08-30 /pmc/articles/PMC9504613/ /pubmed/36143198 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jpm12091414 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Sardella, Alberto
Lenzo, Vittorio
Basile, Giorgio
Musetti, Alessandro
Franceschini, Christian
Quattropani, Maria C.
Gender and Psychosocial Differences in Psychological Resilience among a Community of Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title Gender and Psychosocial Differences in Psychological Resilience among a Community of Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full Gender and Psychosocial Differences in Psychological Resilience among a Community of Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_fullStr Gender and Psychosocial Differences in Psychological Resilience among a Community of Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Gender and Psychosocial Differences in Psychological Resilience among a Community of Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_short Gender and Psychosocial Differences in Psychological Resilience among a Community of Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic
title_sort gender and psychosocial differences in psychological resilience among a community of older adults during the covid-19 pandemic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9504613/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36143198
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jpm12091414
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