Video call and depression among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: The JAGES one-year longitudinal study.

ABSTRACT: Evidence of video call on preventing late-life depression during the COVID-19 pandemic is limited. We examined the associations of social contact (in-person, voice call, and video call) with incidence of depressive symptoms and evaluated whether specific factors (particularly, age and change in the frequency of in-person contact) affect these associations. We used longitudinal data from the 2019 and 2020 waves of the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study, including 10,523 participants aged ≥65 years in 10 municipalities. Depressive symptoms were measured by the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) score ≥5 in main analysis, and GDS-15 score ≥4, 10, or continuous variable in sensitivity analyses. Social contact represented frequency changes before and during the pandemic: non-contact

SUBMITTER: Shioya R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9933485 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature