Exploring Depression among the Elderly during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Effects of the Big Five, Media Use, and Perceived Social Support

Yang Li, Zhi Lin and Yibo Wu ()
Additional contact information
Yang Li: College of Communication and Art Design, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Zhi Lin: College of Communication and Art Design, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Yibo Wu: School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 20, 1-12

Abstract: The mental health of the elderly is vulnerable during public health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and the risks of depression is increased. The study aimed to explore the effects of physical health, the Big Five personality traits, media use, and different kinds of perceived social support as predictors of levels of depression among the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in more than 120 cities in China with a sample of 1147 older adults, and hierarchical regression was established to examine the predictors of the level of depression. The results showed that almost half of the elderly (48%) had a status of mild or much more severe depression during the COVID-19 pandemic. The level of depression was negatively associated with physical health, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and family support, while it was positively associated with neuroticism and media use. The study emphasized the effects of physical health, the Big Five personality traits, media use, and perceived social support from family as the predictors of levels of depression, providing further measures to help the elderly better react to a public health emergency.

Keywords: depression; perceived social support; Big Five; media use; physical health; the elderly (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/20/13534/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/20/13534/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:20:p:13534-:d:946888

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().