The Relation Between Age and Experienced Stress, Worry, Affect, and Depression During the Spring 2020 Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States
The Relation Between Age and Experienced Stress, Worry, Affect, and Depression During the Spring 2020 Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States
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DOI：
10.1037/emo0000982
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发表时间：
2021-06-17
期刊：
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
Kensinger, Elizabeth A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cunningham, Tony J.;Fields, Eric C.;Kensinger, Elizabeth A.
高龄通常与情绪幸福感的增加有关，老年人比年轻人报告的积极影响更多，负面影响更少。在这里，我们测试这种模式是否在新冠肺炎大流行最初爆发期间保持，该大流行不成比例地将老年人置于风险之中。此外，我们还考察了日常活动和社会联系的潜在调节作用，这已被证明有利于一生的心理健康。我们定期使用在线调查对18-89岁的成年人进行大样本评估。正如本报告(https://osf.io/tb4qv)，)预先登记的那样，我们关注的是美国成年人在两个时间窗口内的自我报告的情绪、抑郁、压力和担忧指标，以及自我报告的日常活动和社交孤立感觉：大流行春季阶段的早期(3月中旬至4月初)和后期(4月中旬至5月初)。在评估的两个时间窗口中，年龄的增加有利于多项指标的情绪幸福感。此外，结果证实，锻炼和对社会联系的感知可以缓冲所有年龄段的负面心理健康结果，尽管即使在控制这些影响的情况下，年龄的有益影响仍然存在。唯一的例外是担心自己的健康：一旦控制了锻炼和社交关系，年龄的增长就会伴随着更多的担忧。总体而言，结果表明，至少在能够获得技术的成年人中，在大流行的春季阶段，年龄越大，复原力越强。因此，老年人以前表现出的更强的恢复力延伸到了大流行开始的背景下。
Advanced age is often associated with increased emotional well-being, with older adults reporting more positive and less negative affect than younger adults. Here, we test whether this pattern held during the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that disproportionately put older adults at risk. We additionally examine potential moderating effects of daily activity and social connectedness, which have been shown to benefit mental health across the life span. We regularly assessed a large sample of adults ages 18-89 using online surveys. As preregistered for this report (https://osf.io/tb4qv), we focus on self-reported measures of affect, depression, stress, and worry as well as self-reported daily activity and perception of social isolation during two time windows for adults in the United States: early (mid-March to early April) and later (mid-April to early May) periods during the spring phase of the pandemic. Increased age benefited emotional well-being for multiple metrics during both time windows assessed. Furthermore, the results confirmed that exercise and perception of social connectedness can buffer against negative mental health outcomes across all ages, although the beneficial effects of age remained even when controlling for these influences. The one exception was worry about one's own health: Once exercise and social connectedness were controlled, increased age was associated with more worry. The results overall suggest that, at least among adults with access to technology, older age was associated with greater resilience during the spring phase of the pandemic. Thus, increased resilience of older adults demonstrated previously extends to the context of the onset of a pandemic.