Depression and Medicine Use among Older Adults during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Psychosocial Resources and COVID-19 Perceived Susceptibility

Lee Greenblatt-Kimron (), Shiri Shinan-Altman, Mordechai Alperin and Inbar Levkovich
Additional contact information
Lee Greenblatt-Kimron: School of Social Work, Ariel University, Ariel 4070000, Israel
Shiri Shinan-Altman: Louis and Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel
Mordechai Alperin: Department of Family Medicine, The Ruth & Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3200003, Israel
Inbar Levkovich: Faculty of Graduate Studies, Oranim Academic College of Education, Kiryat Tivon 3600600, Israel

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 4, 1-10

Abstract: A relationship was found between the COVID-19 pandemic and depression among older adults and between depressed mood and increased use of antidepressant medication among older adults during the pandemic. With the aim of broadening the understanding of these relationships, the study examined whether COVID-19 perceived susceptibility mediates the relationship between psychosocial resources (optimism and perceived social support) and depressive symptoms and medication use. Participants included 383 older adults ( M = 71.75, SD = 6.77) reporting on socio-demographics, health characteristics, depression, optimism, social support, and COVID-19 perceived susceptibility. Medication use was retrieved from participants medical files. Lower optimism, lower social support, and higher COVID-19 perceived susceptibility were associated with greater depression, related with higher medication use. The findings emphasize the buffering effect of psychosocial resources on the adverse effects of depression affecting older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic, and consequently, the increased use of medication in this population. Practitioners should focus interventions on enhancing optimism and expanding social support among older adults. Moreover, interventions focused on alleviating depression among older adults should aim at improving perceptions of perceived susceptibility in the older population.

Keywords: depression; medication use; optimism; social support; COVID-19 perceived susceptibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/3398/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/4/3398/ (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:20:y:2023:i:4:p:3398-:d:1069100

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 ().