Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic Exacerbation of Depressive Symptoms for Social Frailty from the ORANGE Registry.

Ayuto Kodama,Hidetaka Ota,Hyuma Makizako,Tsuyoshi Ono,Yu Kume,Sangyoon Lee,Tomoko Takahashi,Hiroyuki Shimada

doi:10.3390/ijerph19020986

Abstract

Background: Recent longitudinal studies have reported proportion of frailty transition in older individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study aimed at clarifying the impact of social frailty in community-dwelling older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and at identifying factors that can predict transition to social frailty. Methods: We performed this study from 2019 (before declaration of the state of emergency over the rising number of COVID-19 cases) to 2020 (after declaration of the emergency). We applied Makizako’s social frail index to our study subjects at the baseline and classified into robust, social prefrailty, and social frailty groups. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed using robust, social prefrailty, or social frailty status as dependent variable. Results: Analysis by the Kruskal–Wallis test revealed significant differences in the score on the GDS-15 among the robust, social prefrailty, and social frailty groups (p < 0.05). Furthermore, multiple regression analysis identified a significant association between the social frailty status and the score on GDS-15 (odds ratio, 1.57; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.15–2.13; p = 0.001). Conclusion: The increase in the rate of transition of elderly individuals to the social frailty group could have been related to the implementation of the stay-at-home order as part of the countermeasures for COVID-19. Furthermore, the increased prevalence of depressive symptoms associated with the stay-at-home order could also have influenced the increase in the prevalence of social frailty during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Highlights

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported cases of COVID-19 infection inChina on 31 December 2019, declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, and declared the COVID-19 pandemic on 11 March 2020.The Japanese government declared a state of emergency on 16 April 2020
The Kruskal–Wallis test was used to analyze the differences in the characteristics of the participants among the three groups, and revealed significant differences in the GDS-15 score among the groups (p < 0.05), and more depressive symptoms in the social frailty group
There were no differences in the subject characteristics, such as the age, gender, medication status, education level, or scores on the UWS, GS, WM, Trail Making Test Version A (TMT-A), Trail Making Test Version B (TMT-B), Symbol Digit Substitution Task (SDST), or type dementia assessment scale (TDAS) at the baseline among the groups

Summary

Introduction

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported cases of COVID-19 infection inChina on 31 December 2019, declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, and declared the COVID-19 pandemic on 11 March 2020.The Japanese government declared a state of emergency on 16 April 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported cases of COVID-19 infection in. China on 31 December 2019, declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, and declared the COVID-19 pandemic on 11 March 2020. The Japanese government declared a state of emergency on 16 April 2020. It announced three major preventive measures against COVID-19: avoidance of closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings ( called the “Three Cs”). While living through COVID-19 countermeasures, many people experienced drastic changes in their ordinary lifestyles, including fearfulness of contracting COVID-19 infection, depression and excessive sleep [3,4,5,6].

Results

Discussion

Conclusion