Department of Sociology, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Gerontologist. 2021 Jan 21;61(1):103-113. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnaa168.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in social isolation globally, creating heightened levels of stress and anxiety. This study investigates the link between social isolation and mental well-being in later life, and how it varies across countries.
We draw on a subset of older adults from Global Behaviors and Perceptions in the COVID-19 Pandemic, a unique global online survey of 13,660 participants from 62 countries. We use mixed-effects models to analyze the data.
Social isolation (distancing) significantly predicts poor mental health operationalized as coronavirus-induced distress (p < .01). At the aggregate level, average distress varies positively across countries with higher numbers of coronavirus-related deaths (p < .10) and more fragile state capacity (p < .05), while varying negatively across those with more stringent anticoronavirus policies (p < .05). Finally, we report several cross-level interactions between social isolation and the total number of deaths (p = .025), policy stringency (p = .065), state fragility (p = .061), and globalization index (p = .071).
Our study shows that a proper understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on the mental well-being of older adults should consider the moderating role of national context.
2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行在全球范围内导致了社会隔离，造成了更高水平的压力和焦虑。本研究调查了社会隔离与晚年心理健康之间的联系，以及这种联系在各国之间的差异。
我们利用来自全球 COVID-19 大流行行为和认知调查的老年人子样本，这是一项来自 62 个国家的 13660 名参与者的独特全球在线调查。我们使用混合效应模型来分析数据。
社会隔离（隔离）显著预测了心理健康不良，表现为冠状病毒引起的痛苦（p<.01）。在总体水平上，平均痛苦与冠状病毒相关死亡人数较多的国家呈正相关（p<.10），与国家能力较弱的国家呈正相关（p<.05），与抗冠状病毒政策较严格的国家呈负相关（p<.05）。最后，我们报告了社会隔离与总死亡人数（p=0.025）、政策严格程度（p=0.065）、国家脆弱性（p=0.061）和全球化指数（p=0.071）之间的几个交叉水平相互作用。
我们的研究表明，要正确理解 COVID-19 对老年人心理健康的影响，应考虑到国家背景的调节作用。
