Segel-Karpas Dikla, Ayalon Liat
Department of Gerontology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
School of Social Work, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Aging Ment Health. 2022 Mar;26(3):578-585. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2021.1910795. Epub 2021 Apr 16.
Older adults' greater susceptibility to mortality from COVID-19 may have meaningful psychological implications not only for them, but also for their children. In this study, we focused on daughters of older women and examined the intergenerational relationships as a correlate of daughters' anxiety, depressive symptoms, and psychosomatic complaints. Data were collected from 456 daughters of older mothers (M(age) = 40.82) during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in Israel, when a relatively strict lockdown was enforced, separating mothers and daughters. Findings suggest that while mothers' objective risk factors (age and morbidity) were mostly not associated with their daughters' distress, the daughters' concern about their mothers, and their perceived ambivalence in the relationship with the mother, as well as structural and affectual solidarity, were. We conclude that the mother-daughter relationship is an important correlate of daughters' reactions to this health crisis. Practically, it suggests that some daughters to aging mothers could be at a greater risk for emotional distress following the COVID-19 outbreak.
老年人对新冠病毒死亡的易感性更高，这可能不仅对他们自身，而且对他们的子女都有重要的心理影响。在本研究中，我们聚焦于老年女性的女儿，并将代际关系作为女儿焦虑、抑郁症状和身心不适的一个相关因素进行了考察。数据是在以色列新冠疫情第一波爆发期间收集的，当时实施了相对严格的封锁措施，导致母亲和女儿分离，共有456名老年母亲的女儿（年龄中位数 = 40.82岁）参与。研究结果表明，虽然母亲的客观风险因素（年龄和发病率）大多与女儿的痛苦无关，但女儿对母亲的担忧、她们在与母亲关系中感受到的矛盾情绪，以及结构和情感团结却与之相关。我们得出结论，母女关系是女儿对这一健康危机反应的一个重要相关因素。实际上，这表明一些年老母亲的女儿在新冠疫情爆发后可能面临更大的情绪困扰风险。
