NDLI: Sex differences in changes of depressive symptoms among older adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from two longitudinal cohorts

Content Provider	Springer Nature : BioMed Central
Author	Zheng, Fanfan Li, Chenglong Hua, Rong Liang, Jie Gao, Darui Xie, Wuxiang
Abstract	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.
Related Links	https://bmcgeriatr.biomedcentral.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12877-023-03744-1.pdf
Ending Page	10
Page Count	10
Starting Page	1
File Format	HTM / HTML
ISSN	14712318
DOI	10.1186/s12877-023-03744-1
Journal	BMC Geriatrics
Issue Number	1
Volume Number	23
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2023-02-01
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Geriatrics Gerontology Aging Rehabilitation Sex differences Depressive symptoms COVID-19 Older adults Longitudinal study Geriatrics/Gerontology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Geriatrics and Gerontology
Journal Impact Factor	3.4/2023
5-Year Journal Impact Factor	4.1/2023

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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