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Sex differences in changes of depressive symptoms among older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from two longitudinal cohorts
BACKGROUND: Major concerns about the adverse mental health impact of the rapidly spread COVID-19 pandemic have been raised. Previous studies on changes of depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic have yielded inconsistent results regarding the sex differences. Since women have higher depress...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9891753/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36726098 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-03744-1 |
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author | Zheng, Fanfan Li, Chenglong Hua, Rong Liang, Jie Gao, Darui Xie, Wuxiang |
author_facet | Zheng, Fanfan Li, Chenglong Hua, Rong Liang, Jie Gao, Darui Xie, Wuxiang |
author_sort | Zheng, Fanfan |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Major concerns about the adverse mental health impact of the rapidly spread COVID-19 pandemic have been raised. Previous studies on changes of depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic have yielded inconsistent results regarding the sex differences. Since women have higher depressive symptoms even without the pandemic, it is essential to consider the pre-existing change of depressive symptoms of a similar period to discern the effect of the pandemic on depression. This study aimed to evaluate sex differences in depressive symptoms before and during the pandemic. METHODS: Data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; waves 13 to 15) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA; wave 8 to COVID-19 wave 2) were analyzed. Depressive symptoms were assessed by the 8-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scale. According to the time of COVID-19 outbreak in the US and the UK, the intervals from waves 13 to 14 surveys of the HRS and from waves 8 to 9 surveys of the ELSA were employed as pre-pandemic periods to control for the pre-existing depressive symptoms, respectively. Changes of CES-D scores during the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods were assessed by linear mixed models. RESULTS: Nine thousand, seven hundred thirty-seven participants (mean age: 66.7 ± 10.7 years) from the HRS and 5,098 participants (mean age: 68.7 ± 10.0 years) from the ELSA were included. CES-D scores among women were significantly higher than those among men at all waves in both cohorts. During the pre-pandemic period, no significant sex difference on changes of CES-D scores was detected in either the HRS or the ELSA. During the pandemic period, CES-D scores were increased in both men and women and the sex differences in CES-D increments of the two cohorts were both significant. Enlarged sex differences were demonstrated in increments of CES-D scores during the pandemic period. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest women suffered from worse depressive symptoms in response to the pandemic, although the changes of depression were similar between men and women before the pandemic. These findings underscore the necessity to support the vulnerable populations, especially women, to manage the distress brought by the pandemic and maintain optimal mental health status. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-023-03744-1. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9891753 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-98917532023-02-02 Sex differences in changes of depressive symptoms among older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from two longitudinal cohorts Zheng, Fanfan Li, Chenglong Hua, Rong Liang, Jie Gao, Darui Xie, Wuxiang BMC Geriatr Research BACKGROUND: Major concerns about the adverse mental health impact of the rapidly spread COVID-19 pandemic have been raised. Previous studies on changes of depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic have yielded inconsistent results regarding the sex differences. Since women have higher depressive symptoms even without the pandemic, it is essential to consider the pre-existing change of depressive symptoms of a similar period to discern the effect of the pandemic on depression. This study aimed to evaluate sex differences in depressive symptoms before and during the pandemic. METHODS: Data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; waves 13 to 15) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA; wave 8 to COVID-19 wave 2) were analyzed. Depressive symptoms were assessed by the 8-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) scale. According to the time of COVID-19 outbreak in the US and the UK, the intervals from waves 13 to 14 surveys of the HRS and from waves 8 to 9 surveys of the ELSA were employed as pre-pandemic periods to control for the pre-existing depressive symptoms, respectively. Changes of CES-D scores during the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods were assessed by linear mixed models. RESULTS: Nine thousand, seven hundred thirty-seven participants (mean age: 66.7 ± 10.7 years) from the HRS and 5,098 participants (mean age: 68.7 ± 10.0 years) from the ELSA were included. CES-D scores among women were significantly higher than those among men at all waves in both cohorts. During the pre-pandemic period, no significant sex difference on changes of CES-D scores was detected in either the HRS or the ELSA. During the pandemic period, CES-D scores were increased in both men and women and the sex differences in CES-D increments of the two cohorts were both significant. Enlarged sex differences were demonstrated in increments of CES-D scores during the pandemic period. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest women suffered from worse depressive symptoms in response to the pandemic, although the changes of depression were similar between men and women before the pandemic. These findings underscore the necessity to support the vulnerable populations, especially women, to manage the distress brought by the pandemic and maintain optimal mental health status. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12877-023-03744-1. BioMed Central 2023-02-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9891753/ /pubmed/36726098 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-03744-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 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 Zheng, Fanfan Li, Chenglong Hua, Rong Liang, Jie Gao, Darui Xie, Wuxiang Sex differences in changes of depressive symptoms among older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from two longitudinal cohorts |
title | Sex differences in changes of depressive symptoms among older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from two longitudinal cohorts |
title_full | Sex differences in changes of depressive symptoms among older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from two longitudinal cohorts |
title_fullStr | Sex differences in changes of depressive symptoms among older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from two longitudinal cohorts |
title_full_unstemmed | Sex differences in changes of depressive symptoms among older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from two longitudinal cohorts |
title_short | Sex differences in changes of depressive symptoms among older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from two longitudinal cohorts |
title_sort | sex differences in changes of depressive symptoms among older adults before and during the covid-19 pandemic: evidence from two longitudinal cohorts |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9891753/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36726098 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-023-03744-1 |
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