Impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on self-reported mood and self-rated health of community-dwelling adults with chronic illness | OPEN ACCESS
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During the COVID-19 pandemic New Zealand implemented some of the strictest physical distancing restrictions in the world, including an initial national lockdown from 25 March 2020–27 April 2020. During this lockdown, residents were required to stay in their homes and were only permitted to leave for essential personal movement.
Previous studies have suggested that this national lockdown negatively affected adults’ mental health. A New Zealand survey conducted during the lockdown found adults aged 18–90 reported higher levels of psychological distress compared to a pre-pandemic national health survey.[[1]] A second survey of adults aged 18+ conducted between May and June 2020 found all age groups, except the 75+ age group, had higher levels of depressive symptoms than pre-pandemic normative data.[[2]]
Internationally, there is evidence that these effects were more pronounced in middle-aged and older adults with pre-existing chronic illness. For example, this population had a higher risk of developing depression during the COVID-19 pandemic.[[3–8]] There have also been reports of physical deterioration among older adults during the pandemic.[[9]] It is possible that strict lockdown measures could directly or indirectly impact the health and wellbeing of adults with pre-existing chronic illness due to drastic changes to daily routines, physical activities and family and social supports; reduced access to community services; and delays in the treatment of chronic illness.[[9–12]]
Previous New Zealand studies that investigated the psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic included a relatively small number of older adults and did not specifically target people with chronic illness.[[1,2]] To avoid these shortcomings, this study aimed to compare self-reported mood and self-rated health among a large cohort of adults with chronic illness in the 12 months before and after the first national COVID-19 lockdown. We utilised routinely collected national health data captured by the International Residential Assessment Instrument (interRAI) during this period (25 March 2019–24 March 2021). interRAI is a comprehensive clinical assessment that determines medical and support needs; this assessment is mandated for all community-dwelling New Zealanders being assessed for publicly funded home support services or aged residential care. Community-dwelling people assessed by interRAI typically have chronic illness and functional impairment. Given the pre-existing high rates of loneliness, depression, and poor/fair self-rated health in the interRAI population,[[13]] this population is at risk of further decline in their health and wellbeing as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown. To account for seasonality patterns, we used a repeated cross-sectional design whereby we compared all people who underwent an interRAI assessment in the first 3 months following lockdown (25 March–24 June, 2020) with all people who underwent an interRAI assessment during the same 3 months of the previous year (25 March–24 June, 2019). To determine whether any effects of the lockdown were temporary or long-lasting, we repeated this comparison 3–6 months, 6–9 months and 9–12 months post-lockdown (Figure 1).
We hypothesised that the community-dwelling interRAI population in the first year post-lockdown would have worse self-reported mood and self-rated health than those in the comparative pre-lockdown period.
Methods
Setting
This was an observational study of routinely collected national health information. The study population was a continuously recruited national cohort who received an interRAI Home Care assessment (interRAI-HC) or an interRAI Contact Assessment (interRAI-CA) anywhere in New Zealand between 25 March 2019 and 24 March 2021.
The interRAI-CA is a brief assessment that is used as a triage tool to determine the support needs of adults living at home. It contains approximately 50 demographic, clinical and psychosocial measures and is delivered in 20 minutes over the phone. An “urgency for assessment score” determines which individuals progress to an interRAI-HC assessment. The interRAI-HC is an assessment tool that determines whether the individual requires long-term support services while living at home (i.e., household management and/or personal care), or whether their needs are too high to be met in the community and residential care is required. The interRAI-HC contains information on approximately 250 demographic, clinical and psychosocial factors and takes up to 1.5 hours to complete face-to-face. If a person is receiving home care support services and their needs change, they are re-assessed with an interRAI-HC. During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (25 March–30 June, 2020), interRAI-CA was used instead of interRAI-HC assessments, as it is shorter and could be completed over the telephone. All people who access home support services are expected to be captured in this interRAI dataset. The interRAI facility at the Ministry of Health provided access to deidentified data. Ethics approval was obtained from Auckland Health Research Ethics Committee (reference AH2579).
New Zealand had its first confirmed COVID-19 case on 28 February 2020 and went into lockdown on 25 March 2020. Prior to lockdown, there were minimal restrictions on movement. During lockdown, all residents were required to stay in their homes and were only permitted to leave for essential personal movement (e.g., to provide or access essential services). This lockdown ended on 27 April 2020. From this date until the end of our study period (24 March 2021) varying restrictions were in place, but there were no further lockdowns.
Participants
We included all people aged 40+ who received an interRAI-CA (version 9.3.1, New Zealand Customisation) or an interRAI-HC (version 9.1, New Zealand Customisation) between 25 March 2019 and 24 March 2021 and gave consent for their data to be used for research. A previous study using the New Zealand interRAI database reported that 93.1% of people provided consent for research.[[14]] interRAI data were requested from Technical Advisory Services. Participant flow is illustrated in Figure 2.
Adults assessed for home support services typically have long-term physical illness and functional impairment. Referrals for initial interRAI-CA are generally made by the individual’s general practitioner or to support hospital discharge; however, self-referral is possible. Individuals assessed by interRAI-CA are generally aged 65+, but younger people may undergo interRAI assessment if they qualify for disability funding or have long-term support needs for chronic health conditions. Individuals assessed by interRAI-HC fall into one of two categories: either they require long-term support services while living at home, or they are currently living in the community but the interRAI-HC assessment indicates that their needs are high enough to require long-term residential care. There were 36,000 interRAI-HC assessments completed in 2018/2019; 10% and 40% of all New Zealanders aged 65 years and 85 years respectively had an interRAI-HC assessment during this period.[[15]]
Measures
interRAI assessments are completed by trained interRAI assessors affiliated with healthcare providers and approved agencies. A national competency framework supporting interRAI assessments provides quality assurance, and interRAI assessments have been shown to have good inter-rater reliability.[[16]]
Self-reported mood
Although more comprehensive measures of mood are included in the interRAI-HC (e.g., the Depression Rating Scale), the only available measure of mood in the interRAI-CA was a single measure of self-reported mood. During the interRAI-CA, individuals are asked “In the past 3 days, have you felt sad, depressed or hopeless?” and there are three potential responses: 0 = no; 1 = yes; 8 = person could not (would not) respond. During the interRAI-HC, individuals are asked “In the last 3 days, how often have you felt sad, depressed, or hopeless?” and there are five potential responses: 0 = not in the last 3 days; 1 = not in the last 3 days, but often feels that way; 2 = in 1–2 of the last 3 days; 3 = daily in the last 3 days; 8 = person could not (would not) respond. To align these responses, we recoded the responses in the interRAI-HC as: 0 or 1 = no; 2 or 3 = yes. For both assessments, a response of “Person could not (would not) respond” was recorded as missing data and excluded from analysis. Therefore, we recorded self-reported mood as a binary variable, defined as whether the individual answered “yes” or “no” to the question, “In the past 3 days, have you felt sad, depressed or hopeless?” In a Korean population of older adults accessing home care, self-reported mood as measured by the interRAI-HC had excellent inter-rater reliability (κ=0.87).[[17]]
Self-rated health
During the interRAI-CA and the interRAI-HC, individuals are asked “In general, how would you rate your health?” In both assessments there are five potential responses: 0 = excellent; 1 = good; 2 = fair; 3 = poor; 8 = could not (would not) respond. For the purposes of bivariate analysis of self-rated health, we combined the responses “excellent” and “good” into one category and “fair” and “poor” into another category, with “8” treated as missing data and excluded from analysis. In a Korean population of older adults with home care, self-rated health as measured by the interRAI-HC had excellent inter-rater reliability (κ=0.81).[[17]]
Socio-demographic variables
Socio-demographic variables comprised age (40–64, 65–79, 80+); gender (female, male); ethnicity in the prioritised order of Māori, Pacific People, Asian, Other, or European; living arrangement (alone, with spouse/partner only, with others); and the New Zealand Deprivation Index (NZDep2013: 1–3, 4–7, 8–10; 1 = the least deprived areas, 10 = the most deprived areas). Age, gender, ethnicity and living arrangement are routinely recorded by the interRAI-CA and the interRAI-HC. interRAI assessments routinely record domicile codes, a classification system used by the New Zealand Health Information Service to describe geographically based administrative units. Each domicile code refers to an area containing a median population of approximately 2,000 people. The domicile code was matched to the NZDep2013 for the area. NZDep2013 was calculated by combining Census information on access to the internet, income, employment, qualifications, owned home, support, living space and access to a car.[[18]]
Data analysis
R statistical software (version 3.6.0) was used for statistical analysis. Only the first interRAI assessment record of each person in each quarter was used for analysis. Descriptive statistics for self-reported mood and self-rated health were obtained for each of the eight quarters. The results of self-reported mood and self-rated health were stratified by the socio-demographic variables. As shown in Table 1, the socio-demographic data were unbalanced. For example, post-lockdown Quarter 1 had a higher proportion of people aged 80+ years, female, European, living alone, and living in low deprivation areas compared to pre-lockdown Quarter 1. We initially fitted models adjusting for socio-demographic variables and with an interaction between pre- and post-lockdown quarters. Next, we performed Type III Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Finally, independent sample bivariate analyses with t-Tests were used to compare each of the two primary outcomes in pre-and post-lockdown quarters (Quarter 1, Quarter 2, Quarter 3, Quarter 4). Due to the very large number of comparisons, we set the level of statistical significance at 0.001 for all analyses to minimise type I error.
Results
View Tables 1–3 and Figures 1–2.
The total number of interRAI assessments in the community were similar in the pre-lockdown (n=50,005) and post-lockdown (n=50,623) periods (Figure 2). Apart from post-lockdown Quarter 1, approximately 70% of interRAI assessments were conducted using interRAI-HC, while approximately 30% used interRAI-CA (Table 1). In post-lockdown Quarter 1, in-person interRAI-HC assessments were reduced to approximately 40%, while interRAI-CA increased to approximately 60% of total interRAI assessments. Table 1 presents the socio-demographic details of people who had interRAI assessments completed in each of the pre- and post-lockdown quarters.
Self-reported mood
Table 2 presents the results of self-reported mood in each of the pre- and post-lockdown quarters. A lower proportion of the 80+ years old age group (18.9% vs 22.9%, p<.001), women (22.2% vs 26.5%, p<.001), European (22.5% vs 26.0%, p<.001), people who lived alone (21.1% vs 25.8%, p<.001) and people who lived in the NZ Deprivation Index 4–7 areas (22.1% vs 25.8%, p<.001) and 8–10 areas (22.7% vs 26.2%, p<.001) reported sad/depressed/hopeless moods in post-lockdown Quarter 1, relative to pre-lockdown Quarter 1. There were no statistically significant changes in self-reported mood in the second, third or fourth post-lockdown quarters.
Self-rated health
Table 3 presents the results of self-rated health in each of the pre- and post-lockdown quarters. A lower proportion of the 65–79 years old age group (49.9% vs 55.4%, p<0.001), 80+ years old age group (38.7% vs 45.9%, p<.001), women (41.8% vs 49.9%, p<.001), men (48.3% vs 52.3%, p<.001), European (42.4% vs 49.4%, p<.001), people who lived alone (39.6% vs 49.0%, p<.001) and people who lived in the more deprived areas (NZ Deprivation Index 4–7: 43.0% vs 49.7%, p<0.001; NZ Deprivation Index 8-–10: 44.8% vs 53.5%, p<.001) reported fair or poor health in post-lockdown Quarter 1, relative to pre-lockdown Quarter 1. There were no statistically significant changes in self-rated health in the second, third, or fourth post-lockdown quarters.
Discussion
This is the first investigation of the psychological impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on a cohort of adults with chronic illness in New Zealand. To maximise cohort size, we utilised routinely collected national health data captured by interRAI. interRAI-HC and interRAI-CA are routinely used assessments for community-dwelling people with chronic illness who require support services. Given the many potential negative consequences of the COVID-19 lockdown on the health of people with chronic illness, we hypothesised that the community-dwelling interRAI population in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic would have worse self-reported mood and self-rated health than those in the comparative pre-lockdown period. However, we found no decreases in self-reported mood or self-rated health in the first, second, third, or fourth post-lockdown quarters.
Unexpectedly, we found the 80+ age group, women, Europeans, people who lived alone and people who lived in more deprived areas had improved self-reported mood and self-rated health in the first post-lockdown quarter relative to the comparative pre-lockdown period. These groups appear to have “benefitted” from the COVID-19 lockdown and its physical distancing restrictions in the first post-lockdown quarter from 25 March to 24 June 2020. This finding may be explained by the increased supports that were put in place during the COVID-19 lockdown. A New Zealand study suggested there were “silver linings” with improved social cohesiveness during the COVID-19 lockdown.[[19]] There were examples of increased support for some older adults and people living alone as New Zealand Government agencies, not-for-profit community organisations and academics joined forces to develop strengths-based messages and interventions that addressed the psychological and emotional needs, social connection and social recognition of older adults.[[20]] Healthcare providers also used innovative ways to deliver services to older adults during lockdowns. For example, dementia community support services used video-conferencing to deliver evidence-based group treatment for people with dementia, which provided social connection for them and their carers.[[21]] It is possible these community strategies put in place to “reach out” to people during lockdowns benefitted some of our study population.
It is also possible that New Zealand’s explicit use of an “elimination strategy” mitigated the potential negative consequences of COVID-19 lockdown on wellbeing. The stated aim of New Zealand’s first lockdown from 25 March 2020 was to eliminate COVID-19 in the community, thereby allowing a return to near normality.[[22]] This approach may have mitigated some of the negative consequences experienced by populations that experienced multiple successive lockdowns with a focus on suppression, rather than elimination. However, a global comparison between countries that pursued elimination versus countries that pursued suppression suggested that an elimination strategy was associated with a small decrease in mental health (psychological distress and life evaluations).[[23]] Further investigation into the relative merits of elimination and suppression strategies with respect to mental health outcomes is warranted.
New Zealand experienced one of the lowest cumulative COVID-19 case counts, incidence and mortality in its first wave of COVID-19 due to the timely implementation and rapid escalation of COVID-19 elimination strategies.[[24]] These strategies resulted in an unprecedented reduction of influenza and other respiratory viral infections in 2020,[[25]] which could have led to better health status and self-rated health in adults with chronic illness. However, we cannot definitively explain why self-reported mood and self-rated health improved in the 80+ age group, women, Europeans, people who lived alone, and people who lived in more deprived areas in the first post-lockdown quarter. It would be useful to determine whether similar findings were observed in subsequent lockdowns.
The lack of any negative effect on self-reported mood and self-rated health in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in this study may be explained by resilience in older adults. Older adults have been shown to be more psychologically resilient than young adults, particularly in the domains of emotional regulation and problem solving.[[26]] Two New Zealand surveys conducted within the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic and two international literature reviews concluded that older adults had lower levels of depression and psychological distress and fewer negative psychological outcomes than younger age groups.[[1,2,9,27]] A UK study of middle-aged and older adults also found older age was a protective factor for depression in women during the COVID-19 pandemic.[[6]] A European study of adults aged 50+ used a within-subject design to examine self-reported depression between 2005 and 2017 and directly following the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.[[28]] It reported changes in self-reported depression prior to the pandemic were not significant across 11 European countries, but decreased by 14.5% across all countries between 2017 and 2020. A study in Hong Kong showed that loneliness, anxiety and insomnia in older patients with multi-morbidity deteriorated markedly after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the level of depression did not change significantly, with 62.4% and 60.2% of participants scoring within the normal range on the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively.[[29]]
Strengths and limitations
Our study has a large sample size of 45,349 adults aged 40+ years in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 45,553 adults aged 40+ in the preceding year. It is also one of the first studies that has used a globally validated assessment tool and nationwide data to examine the impact of COVID-19 on people accessing publicly funded home support services.
However, there are limitations to this study. First, interRAI assessment forms part of the process for government-funded support in order for the person to stay safely at home; our findings may not be able to be extrapolated to people with chronic illness that did not have an interRAI assessment. Second, we decided not to use a longitudinal study design because the interRAI population in the year before lockdown was not identical to the population assessed post-lockdown, so it was not possible to “pair” measurements for analyses. Instead, we used all available data and treated the pre- and post-COVID interRAI populations as two separate samples. Other New Zealand studies have used similar study designs to compare COVID-19 data with 2019 data.[[30,31]] Third, this study used a single question of self-reported mood as an outcome. We could not use the Depression Rating Scale as it is not available in the interRAI-CA. A previous study found the interRAI-CA self-reported mood question was poorly correlated with the Depression Rating Scale.[[32]] Nevertheless, other single item depression questions have reasonable psychometric properties,[[33,34]] and one was used in a longitudinal study on the impact of COVID-19 on depression.[[28]] Fourth, unlike interRAI-HC, interRAI-CA does not routinely record physical comorbidities or generate an activities of daily living functional scale. Therefore, we could not adjust our analysis to these variables. Fifth, a higher proportion of interRAI-CA assessments were completed in the first post-lockdown quarter, because face-to-face assessments were limited during the lockdown. Since interRAI-CA is conducted over the telephone, it does not include clinical observations that could assist in detecting depressed mood and subjective poor health amongst the interRAI population. Finally, our analyses were limited by missing data in routinely collected health records.
Conclusion
Self-reported mood and self-rated health of the New Zealand interRAI population were not negatively affected in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The oldest people (80+ years), women, Europeans, people who lived alone and people who lived in more deprived areas had improved self-reported mood and self-rated health in the first post-lockdown quarter relative to the comparative pre-lockdown period. A number of factors may explain these findings including resilience reserve, improved social and community cohesiveness, and community strategies put in place to “reach out” to people during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Summary
Abstract
Aim
To determine whether self-reported mood or self-rated health were affected in community-dwelling adults with chronic illness following COVID-19 lockdown.
Method
This was a repeated cross-sectional study using secondary data. We included New Zealanders aged 40+ who underwent International Residential Instrument (interRAI) assessments in the year prior to COVID-19 lockdown (25 March 2019–24 March 2020) or in the year following COVID-19 lockdown (25 March 2020–24 March 2021). Pairwise comparisons were made between each pre-lockdown quarter and its respective post-lockdown quarter to account for seasonality patterns. Data from 45,553 (pre-lockdown) and 45,349 (post-lockdown) assessments were analysed. Outcomes (self-reported mood, self-rated health) were stratified by socio-demographic variables.
Results
Self-reported mood improved in the first quarter post-lockdown among those aged 80+, as well as among women, people of European ethnicity, those living alone and those living in more deprived areas. Self-rated health improved in these same groups, as well as among those aged 65–79, and among men. No differences in self-reported mood or self-rated health were found in the second, third, or fourth quarters post-lockdown.
Conclusion
Self-reported mood and self-rated health of community-dwelling adults with chronic illness were not negatively affected following COVID-19 lockdown, and temporarily improved among some sub-groups. However, the longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic need to be closely monitored.
Author Information
Acknowledgements
Correspondence
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Competing Interests
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Impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on self-reported mood and self-rated health of community-dwelling adults with chronic illness | OPEN ACCESS
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During the COVID-19 pandemic New Zealand implemented some of the strictest physical distancing restrictions in the world, including an initial national lockdown from 25 March 2020–27 April 2020. During this lockdown, residents were required to stay in their homes and were only permitted to leave for essential personal movement.
Previous studies have suggested that this national lockdown negatively affected adults’ mental health. A New Zealand survey conducted during the lockdown found adults aged 18–90 reported higher levels of psychological distress compared to a pre-pandemic national health survey.[[1]] A second survey of adults aged 18+ conducted between May and June 2020 found all age groups, except the 75+ age group, had higher levels of depressive symptoms than pre-pandemic normative data.[[2]]
Internationally, there is evidence that these effects were more pronounced in middle-aged and older adults with pre-existing chronic illness. For example, this population had a higher risk of developing depression during the COVID-19 pandemic.[[3–8]] There have also been reports of physical deterioration among older adults during the pandemic.[[9]] It is possible that strict lockdown measures could directly or indirectly impact the health and wellbeing of adults with pre-existing chronic illness due to drastic changes to daily routines, physical activities and family and social supports; reduced access to community services; and delays in the treatment of chronic illness.[[9–12]]
Previous New Zealand studies that investigated the psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic included a relatively small number of older adults and did not specifically target people with chronic illness.[[1,2]] To avoid these shortcomings, this study aimed to compare self-reported mood and self-rated health among a large cohort of adults with chronic illness in the 12 months before and after the first national COVID-19 lockdown. We utilised routinely collected national health data captured by the International Residential Assessment Instrument (interRAI) during this period (25 March 2019–24 March 2021). interRAI is a comprehensive clinical assessment that determines medical and support needs; this assessment is mandated for all community-dwelling New Zealanders being assessed for publicly funded home support services or aged residential care. Community-dwelling people assessed by interRAI typically have chronic illness and functional impairment. Given the pre-existing high rates of loneliness, depression, and poor/fair self-rated health in the interRAI population,[[13]] this population is at risk of further decline in their health and wellbeing as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown. To account for seasonality patterns, we used a repeated cross-sectional design whereby we compared all people who underwent an interRAI assessment in the first 3 months following lockdown (25 March–24 June, 2020) with all people who underwent an interRAI assessment during the same 3 months of the previous year (25 March–24 June, 2019). To determine whether any effects of the lockdown were temporary or long-lasting, we repeated this comparison 3–6 months, 6–9 months and 9–12 months post-lockdown (Figure 1).
We hypothesised that the community-dwelling interRAI population in the first year post-lockdown would have worse self-reported mood and self-rated health than those in the comparative pre-lockdown period.
Methods
Setting
This was an observational study of routinely collected national health information. The study population was a continuously recruited national cohort who received an interRAI Home Care assessment (interRAI-HC) or an interRAI Contact Assessment (interRAI-CA) anywhere in New Zealand between 25 March 2019 and 24 March 2021.
The interRAI-CA is a brief assessment that is used as a triage tool to determine the support needs of adults living at home. It contains approximately 50 demographic, clinical and psychosocial measures and is delivered in 20 minutes over the phone. An “urgency for assessment score” determines which individuals progress to an interRAI-HC assessment. The interRAI-HC is an assessment tool that determines whether the individual requires long-term support services while living at home (i.e., household management and/or personal care), or whether their needs are too high to be met in the community and residential care is required. The interRAI-HC contains information on approximately 250 demographic, clinical and psychosocial factors and takes up to 1.5 hours to complete face-to-face. If a person is receiving home care support services and their needs change, they are re-assessed with an interRAI-HC. During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (25 March–30 June, 2020), interRAI-CA was used instead of interRAI-HC assessments, as it is shorter and could be completed over the telephone. All people who access home support services are expected to be captured in this interRAI dataset. The interRAI facility at the Ministry of Health provided access to deidentified data. Ethics approval was obtained from Auckland Health Research Ethics Committee (reference AH2579).
New Zealand had its first confirmed COVID-19 case on 28 February 2020 and went into lockdown on 25 March 2020. Prior to lockdown, there were minimal restrictions on movement. During lockdown, all residents were required to stay in their homes and were only permitted to leave for essential personal movement (e.g., to provide or access essential services). This lockdown ended on 27 April 2020. From this date until the end of our study period (24 March 2021) varying restrictions were in place, but there were no further lockdowns.
Participants
We included all people aged 40+ who received an interRAI-CA (version 9.3.1, New Zealand Customisation) or an interRAI-HC (version 9.1, New Zealand Customisation) between 25 March 2019 and 24 March 2021 and gave consent for their data to be used for research. A previous study using the New Zealand interRAI database reported that 93.1% of people provided consent for research.[[14]] interRAI data were requested from Technical Advisory Services. Participant flow is illustrated in Figure 2.
Adults assessed for home support services typically have long-term physical illness and functional impairment. Referrals for initial interRAI-CA are generally made by the individual’s general practitioner or to support hospital discharge; however, self-referral is possible. Individuals assessed by interRAI-CA are generally aged 65+, but younger people may undergo interRAI assessment if they qualify for disability funding or have long-term support needs for chronic health conditions. Individuals assessed by interRAI-HC fall into one of two categories: either they require long-term support services while living at home, or they are currently living in the community but the interRAI-HC assessment indicates that their needs are high enough to require long-term residential care. There were 36,000 interRAI-HC assessments completed in 2018/2019; 10% and 40% of all New Zealanders aged 65 years and 85 years respectively had an interRAI-HC assessment during this period.[[15]]
Measures
interRAI assessments are completed by trained interRAI assessors affiliated with healthcare providers and approved agencies. A national competency framework supporting interRAI assessments provides quality assurance, and interRAI assessments have been shown to have good inter-rater reliability.[[16]]
Self-reported mood
Although more comprehensive measures of mood are included in the interRAI-HC (e.g., the Depression Rating Scale), the only available measure of mood in the interRAI-CA was a single measure of self-reported mood. During the interRAI-CA, individuals are asked “In the past 3 days, have you felt sad, depressed or hopeless?” and there are three potential responses: 0 = no; 1 = yes; 8 = person could not (would not) respond. During the interRAI-HC, individuals are asked “In the last 3 days, how often have you felt sad, depressed, or hopeless?” and there are five potential responses: 0 = not in the last 3 days; 1 = not in the last 3 days, but often feels that way; 2 = in 1–2 of the last 3 days; 3 = daily in the last 3 days; 8 = person could not (would not) respond. To align these responses, we recoded the responses in the interRAI-HC as: 0 or 1 = no; 2 or 3 = yes. For both assessments, a response of “Person could not (would not) respond” was recorded as missing data and excluded from analysis. Therefore, we recorded self-reported mood as a binary variable, defined as whether the individual answered “yes” or “no” to the question, “In the past 3 days, have you felt sad, depressed or hopeless?” In a Korean population of older adults accessing home care, self-reported mood as measured by the interRAI-HC had excellent inter-rater reliability (κ=0.87).[[17]]
Self-rated health
During the interRAI-CA and the interRAI-HC, individuals are asked “In general, how would you rate your health?” In both assessments there are five potential responses: 0 = excellent; 1 = good; 2 = fair; 3 = poor; 8 = could not (would not) respond. For the purposes of bivariate analysis of self-rated health, we combined the responses “excellent” and “good” into one category and “fair” and “poor” into another category, with “8” treated as missing data and excluded from analysis. In a Korean population of older adults with home care, self-rated health as measured by the interRAI-HC had excellent inter-rater reliability (κ=0.81).[[17]]
Socio-demographic variables
Socio-demographic variables comprised age (40–64, 65–79, 80+); gender (female, male); ethnicity in the prioritised order of Māori, Pacific People, Asian, Other, or European; living arrangement (alone, with spouse/partner only, with others); and the New Zealand Deprivation Index (NZDep2013: 1–3, 4–7, 8–10; 1 = the least deprived areas, 10 = the most deprived areas). Age, gender, ethnicity and living arrangement are routinely recorded by the interRAI-CA and the interRAI-HC. interRAI assessments routinely record domicile codes, a classification system used by the New Zealand Health Information Service to describe geographically based administrative units. Each domicile code refers to an area containing a median population of approximately 2,000 people. The domicile code was matched to the NZDep2013 for the area. NZDep2013 was calculated by combining Census information on access to the internet, income, employment, qualifications, owned home, support, living space and access to a car.[[18]]
Data analysis
R statistical software (version 3.6.0) was used for statistical analysis. Only the first interRAI assessment record of each person in each quarter was used for analysis. Descriptive statistics for self-reported mood and self-rated health were obtained for each of the eight quarters. The results of self-reported mood and self-rated health were stratified by the socio-demographic variables. As shown in Table 1, the socio-demographic data were unbalanced. For example, post-lockdown Quarter 1 had a higher proportion of people aged 80+ years, female, European, living alone, and living in low deprivation areas compared to pre-lockdown Quarter 1. We initially fitted models adjusting for socio-demographic variables and with an interaction between pre- and post-lockdown quarters. Next, we performed Type III Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Finally, independent sample bivariate analyses with t-Tests were used to compare each of the two primary outcomes in pre-and post-lockdown quarters (Quarter 1, Quarter 2, Quarter 3, Quarter 4). Due to the very large number of comparisons, we set the level of statistical significance at 0.001 for all analyses to minimise type I error.
Results
View Tables 1–3 and Figures 1–2.
The total number of interRAI assessments in the community were similar in the pre-lockdown (n=50,005) and post-lockdown (n=50,623) periods (Figure 2). Apart from post-lockdown Quarter 1, approximately 70% of interRAI assessments were conducted using interRAI-HC, while approximately 30% used interRAI-CA (Table 1). In post-lockdown Quarter 1, in-person interRAI-HC assessments were reduced to approximately 40%, while interRAI-CA increased to approximately 60% of total interRAI assessments. Table 1 presents the socio-demographic details of people who had interRAI assessments completed in each of the pre- and post-lockdown quarters.
Self-reported mood
Table 2 presents the results of self-reported mood in each of the pre- and post-lockdown quarters. A lower proportion of the 80+ years old age group (18.9% vs 22.9%, p<.001), women (22.2% vs 26.5%, p<.001), European (22.5% vs 26.0%, p<.001), people who lived alone (21.1% vs 25.8%, p<.001) and people who lived in the NZ Deprivation Index 4–7 areas (22.1% vs 25.8%, p<.001) and 8–10 areas (22.7% vs 26.2%, p<.001) reported sad/depressed/hopeless moods in post-lockdown Quarter 1, relative to pre-lockdown Quarter 1. There were no statistically significant changes in self-reported mood in the second, third or fourth post-lockdown quarters.
Self-rated health
Table 3 presents the results of self-rated health in each of the pre- and post-lockdown quarters. A lower proportion of the 65–79 years old age group (49.9% vs 55.4%, p<0.001), 80+ years old age group (38.7% vs 45.9%, p<.001), women (41.8% vs 49.9%, p<.001), men (48.3% vs 52.3%, p<.001), European (42.4% vs 49.4%, p<.001), people who lived alone (39.6% vs 49.0%, p<.001) and people who lived in the more deprived areas (NZ Deprivation Index 4–7: 43.0% vs 49.7%, p<0.001; NZ Deprivation Index 8-–10: 44.8% vs 53.5%, p<.001) reported fair or poor health in post-lockdown Quarter 1, relative to pre-lockdown Quarter 1. There were no statistically significant changes in self-rated health in the second, third, or fourth post-lockdown quarters.
Discussion
This is the first investigation of the psychological impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on a cohort of adults with chronic illness in New Zealand. To maximise cohort size, we utilised routinely collected national health data captured by interRAI. interRAI-HC and interRAI-CA are routinely used assessments for community-dwelling people with chronic illness who require support services. Given the many potential negative consequences of the COVID-19 lockdown on the health of people with chronic illness, we hypothesised that the community-dwelling interRAI population in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic would have worse self-reported mood and self-rated health than those in the comparative pre-lockdown period. However, we found no decreases in self-reported mood or self-rated health in the first, second, third, or fourth post-lockdown quarters.
Unexpectedly, we found the 80+ age group, women, Europeans, people who lived alone and people who lived in more deprived areas had improved self-reported mood and self-rated health in the first post-lockdown quarter relative to the comparative pre-lockdown period. These groups appear to have “benefitted” from the COVID-19 lockdown and its physical distancing restrictions in the first post-lockdown quarter from 25 March to 24 June 2020. This finding may be explained by the increased supports that were put in place during the COVID-19 lockdown. A New Zealand study suggested there were “silver linings” with improved social cohesiveness during the COVID-19 lockdown.[[19]] There were examples of increased support for some older adults and people living alone as New Zealand Government agencies, not-for-profit community organisations and academics joined forces to develop strengths-based messages and interventions that addressed the psychological and emotional needs, social connection and social recognition of older adults.[[20]] Healthcare providers also used innovative ways to deliver services to older adults during lockdowns. For example, dementia community support services used video-conferencing to deliver evidence-based group treatment for people with dementia, which provided social connection for them and their carers.[[21]] It is possible these community strategies put in place to “reach out” to people during lockdowns benefitted some of our study population.
It is also possible that New Zealand’s explicit use of an “elimination strategy” mitigated the potential negative consequences of COVID-19 lockdown on wellbeing. The stated aim of New Zealand’s first lockdown from 25 March 2020 was to eliminate COVID-19 in the community, thereby allowing a return to near normality.[[22]] This approach may have mitigated some of the negative consequences experienced by populations that experienced multiple successive lockdowns with a focus on suppression, rather than elimination. However, a global comparison between countries that pursued elimination versus countries that pursued suppression suggested that an elimination strategy was associated with a small decrease in mental health (psychological distress and life evaluations).[[23]] Further investigation into the relative merits of elimination and suppression strategies with respect to mental health outcomes is warranted.
New Zealand experienced one of the lowest cumulative COVID-19 case counts, incidence and mortality in its first wave of COVID-19 due to the timely implementation and rapid escalation of COVID-19 elimination strategies.[[24]] These strategies resulted in an unprecedented reduction of influenza and other respiratory viral infections in 2020,[[25]] which could have led to better health status and self-rated health in adults with chronic illness. However, we cannot definitively explain why self-reported mood and self-rated health improved in the 80+ age group, women, Europeans, people who lived alone, and people who lived in more deprived areas in the first post-lockdown quarter. It would be useful to determine whether similar findings were observed in subsequent lockdowns.
The lack of any negative effect on self-reported mood and self-rated health in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in this study may be explained by resilience in older adults. Older adults have been shown to be more psychologically resilient than young adults, particularly in the domains of emotional regulation and problem solving.[[26]] Two New Zealand surveys conducted within the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic and two international literature reviews concluded that older adults had lower levels of depression and psychological distress and fewer negative psychological outcomes than younger age groups.[[1,2,9,27]] A UK study of middle-aged and older adults also found older age was a protective factor for depression in women during the COVID-19 pandemic.[[6]] A European study of adults aged 50+ used a within-subject design to examine self-reported depression between 2005 and 2017 and directly following the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.[[28]] It reported changes in self-reported depression prior to the pandemic were not significant across 11 European countries, but decreased by 14.5% across all countries between 2017 and 2020. A study in Hong Kong showed that loneliness, anxiety and insomnia in older patients with multi-morbidity deteriorated markedly after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the level of depression did not change significantly, with 62.4% and 60.2% of participants scoring within the normal range on the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively.[[29]]
Strengths and limitations
Our study has a large sample size of 45,349 adults aged 40+ years in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 45,553 adults aged 40+ in the preceding year. It is also one of the first studies that has used a globally validated assessment tool and nationwide data to examine the impact of COVID-19 on people accessing publicly funded home support services.
However, there are limitations to this study. First, interRAI assessment forms part of the process for government-funded support in order for the person to stay safely at home; our findings may not be able to be extrapolated to people with chronic illness that did not have an interRAI assessment. Second, we decided not to use a longitudinal study design because the interRAI population in the year before lockdown was not identical to the population assessed post-lockdown, so it was not possible to “pair” measurements for analyses. Instead, we used all available data and treated the pre- and post-COVID interRAI populations as two separate samples. Other New Zealand studies have used similar study designs to compare COVID-19 data with 2019 data.[[30,31]] Third, this study used a single question of self-reported mood as an outcome. We could not use the Depression Rating Scale as it is not available in the interRAI-CA. A previous study found the interRAI-CA self-reported mood question was poorly correlated with the Depression Rating Scale.[[32]] Nevertheless, other single item depression questions have reasonable psychometric properties,[[33,34]] and one was used in a longitudinal study on the impact of COVID-19 on depression.[[28]] Fourth, unlike interRAI-HC, interRAI-CA does not routinely record physical comorbidities or generate an activities of daily living functional scale. Therefore, we could not adjust our analysis to these variables. Fifth, a higher proportion of interRAI-CA assessments were completed in the first post-lockdown quarter, because face-to-face assessments were limited during the lockdown. Since interRAI-CA is conducted over the telephone, it does not include clinical observations that could assist in detecting depressed mood and subjective poor health amongst the interRAI population. Finally, our analyses were limited by missing data in routinely collected health records.
Conclusion
Self-reported mood and self-rated health of the New Zealand interRAI population were not negatively affected in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The oldest people (80+ years), women, Europeans, people who lived alone and people who lived in more deprived areas had improved self-reported mood and self-rated health in the first post-lockdown quarter relative to the comparative pre-lockdown period. A number of factors may explain these findings including resilience reserve, improved social and community cohesiveness, and community strategies put in place to “reach out” to people during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Summary
Abstract
Aim
To determine whether self-reported mood or self-rated health were affected in community-dwelling adults with chronic illness following COVID-19 lockdown.
Method
This was a repeated cross-sectional study using secondary data. We included New Zealanders aged 40+ who underwent International Residential Instrument (interRAI) assessments in the year prior to COVID-19 lockdown (25 March 2019–24 March 2020) or in the year following COVID-19 lockdown (25 March 2020–24 March 2021). Pairwise comparisons were made between each pre-lockdown quarter and its respective post-lockdown quarter to account for seasonality patterns. Data from 45,553 (pre-lockdown) and 45,349 (post-lockdown) assessments were analysed. Outcomes (self-reported mood, self-rated health) were stratified by socio-demographic variables.
Results
Self-reported mood improved in the first quarter post-lockdown among those aged 80+, as well as among women, people of European ethnicity, those living alone and those living in more deprived areas. Self-rated health improved in these same groups, as well as among those aged 65–79, and among men. No differences in self-reported mood or self-rated health were found in the second, third, or fourth quarters post-lockdown.
Conclusion
Self-reported mood and self-rated health of community-dwelling adults with chronic illness were not negatively affected following COVID-19 lockdown, and temporarily improved among some sub-groups. However, the longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic need to be closely monitored.
Author Information
Acknowledgements
Correspondence
Correspondence Email
Competing Interests
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Impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on self-reported mood and self-rated health of community-dwelling adults with chronic illness | OPEN ACCESS
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During the COVID-19 pandemic New Zealand implemented some of the strictest physical distancing restrictions in the world, including an initial national lockdown from 25 March 2020–27 April 2020. During this lockdown, residents were required to stay in their homes and were only permitted to leave for essential personal movement.
Previous studies have suggested that this national lockdown negatively affected adults’ mental health. A New Zealand survey conducted during the lockdown found adults aged 18–90 reported higher levels of psychological distress compared to a pre-pandemic national health survey.[[1]] A second survey of adults aged 18+ conducted between May and June 2020 found all age groups, except the 75+ age group, had higher levels of depressive symptoms than pre-pandemic normative data.[[2]]
Internationally, there is evidence that these effects were more pronounced in middle-aged and older adults with pre-existing chronic illness. For example, this population had a higher risk of developing depression during the COVID-19 pandemic.[[3–8]] There have also been reports of physical deterioration among older adults during the pandemic.[[9]] It is possible that strict lockdown measures could directly or indirectly impact the health and wellbeing of adults with pre-existing chronic illness due to drastic changes to daily routines, physical activities and family and social supports; reduced access to community services; and delays in the treatment of chronic illness.[[9–12]]
Previous New Zealand studies that investigated the psychological impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic included a relatively small number of older adults and did not specifically target people with chronic illness.[[1,2]] To avoid these shortcomings, this study aimed to compare self-reported mood and self-rated health among a large cohort of adults with chronic illness in the 12 months before and after the first national COVID-19 lockdown. We utilised routinely collected national health data captured by the International Residential Assessment Instrument (interRAI) during this period (25 March 2019–24 March 2021). interRAI is a comprehensive clinical assessment that determines medical and support needs; this assessment is mandated for all community-dwelling New Zealanders being assessed for publicly funded home support services or aged residential care. Community-dwelling people assessed by interRAI typically have chronic illness and functional impairment. Given the pre-existing high rates of loneliness, depression, and poor/fair self-rated health in the interRAI population,[[13]] this population is at risk of further decline in their health and wellbeing as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown. To account for seasonality patterns, we used a repeated cross-sectional design whereby we compared all people who underwent an interRAI assessment in the first 3 months following lockdown (25 March–24 June, 2020) with all people who underwent an interRAI assessment during the same 3 months of the previous year (25 March–24 June, 2019). To determine whether any effects of the lockdown were temporary or long-lasting, we repeated this comparison 3–6 months, 6–9 months and 9–12 months post-lockdown (Figure 1).
We hypothesised that the community-dwelling interRAI population in the first year post-lockdown would have worse self-reported mood and self-rated health than those in the comparative pre-lockdown period.
Methods
Setting
This was an observational study of routinely collected national health information. The study population was a continuously recruited national cohort who received an interRAI Home Care assessment (interRAI-HC) or an interRAI Contact Assessment (interRAI-CA) anywhere in New Zealand between 25 March 2019 and 24 March 2021.
The interRAI-CA is a brief assessment that is used as a triage tool to determine the support needs of adults living at home. It contains approximately 50 demographic, clinical and psychosocial measures and is delivered in 20 minutes over the phone. An “urgency for assessment score” determines which individuals progress to an interRAI-HC assessment. The interRAI-HC is an assessment tool that determines whether the individual requires long-term support services while living at home (i.e., household management and/or personal care), or whether their needs are too high to be met in the community and residential care is required. The interRAI-HC contains information on approximately 250 demographic, clinical and psychosocial factors and takes up to 1.5 hours to complete face-to-face. If a person is receiving home care support services and their needs change, they are re-assessed with an interRAI-HC. During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (25 March–30 June, 2020), interRAI-CA was used instead of interRAI-HC assessments, as it is shorter and could be completed over the telephone. All people who access home support services are expected to be captured in this interRAI dataset. The interRAI facility at the Ministry of Health provided access to deidentified data. Ethics approval was obtained from Auckland Health Research Ethics Committee (reference AH2579).
New Zealand had its first confirmed COVID-19 case on 28 February 2020 and went into lockdown on 25 March 2020. Prior to lockdown, there were minimal restrictions on movement. During lockdown, all residents were required to stay in their homes and were only permitted to leave for essential personal movement (e.g., to provide or access essential services). This lockdown ended on 27 April 2020. From this date until the end of our study period (24 March 2021) varying restrictions were in place, but there were no further lockdowns.
Participants
We included all people aged 40+ who received an interRAI-CA (version 9.3.1, New Zealand Customisation) or an interRAI-HC (version 9.1, New Zealand Customisation) between 25 March 2019 and 24 March 2021 and gave consent for their data to be used for research. A previous study using the New Zealand interRAI database reported that 93.1% of people provided consent for research.[[14]] interRAI data were requested from Technical Advisory Services. Participant flow is illustrated in Figure 2.
Adults assessed for home support services typically have long-term physical illness and functional impairment. Referrals for initial interRAI-CA are generally made by the individual’s general practitioner or to support hospital discharge; however, self-referral is possible. Individuals assessed by interRAI-CA are generally aged 65+, but younger people may undergo interRAI assessment if they qualify for disability funding or have long-term support needs for chronic health conditions. Individuals assessed by interRAI-HC fall into one of two categories: either they require long-term support services while living at home, or they are currently living in the community but the interRAI-HC assessment indicates that their needs are high enough to require long-term residential care. There were 36,000 interRAI-HC assessments completed in 2018/2019; 10% and 40% of all New Zealanders aged 65 years and 85 years respectively had an interRAI-HC assessment during this period.[[15]]
Measures
interRAI assessments are completed by trained interRAI assessors affiliated with healthcare providers and approved agencies. A national competency framework supporting interRAI assessments provides quality assurance, and interRAI assessments have been shown to have good inter-rater reliability.[[16]]
Self-reported mood
Although more comprehensive measures of mood are included in the interRAI-HC (e.g., the Depression Rating Scale), the only available measure of mood in the interRAI-CA was a single measure of self-reported mood. During the interRAI-CA, individuals are asked “In the past 3 days, have you felt sad, depressed or hopeless?” and there are three potential responses: 0 = no; 1 = yes; 8 = person could not (would not) respond. During the interRAI-HC, individuals are asked “In the last 3 days, how often have you felt sad, depressed, or hopeless?” and there are five potential responses: 0 = not in the last 3 days; 1 = not in the last 3 days, but often feels that way; 2 = in 1–2 of the last 3 days; 3 = daily in the last 3 days; 8 = person could not (would not) respond. To align these responses, we recoded the responses in the interRAI-HC as: 0 or 1 = no; 2 or 3 = yes. For both assessments, a response of “Person could not (would not) respond” was recorded as missing data and excluded from analysis. Therefore, we recorded self-reported mood as a binary variable, defined as whether the individual answered “yes” or “no” to the question, “In the past 3 days, have you felt sad, depressed or hopeless?” In a Korean population of older adults accessing home care, self-reported mood as measured by the interRAI-HC had excellent inter-rater reliability (κ=0.87).[[17]]
Self-rated health
During the interRAI-CA and the interRAI-HC, individuals are asked “In general, how would you rate your health?” In both assessments there are five potential responses: 0 = excellent; 1 = good; 2 = fair; 3 = poor; 8 = could not (would not) respond. For the purposes of bivariate analysis of self-rated health, we combined the responses “excellent” and “good” into one category and “fair” and “poor” into another category, with “8” treated as missing data and excluded from analysis. In a Korean population of older adults with home care, self-rated health as measured by the interRAI-HC had excellent inter-rater reliability (κ=0.81).[[17]]
Socio-demographic variables
Socio-demographic variables comprised age (40–64, 65–79, 80+); gender (female, male); ethnicity in the prioritised order of Māori, Pacific People, Asian, Other, or European; living arrangement (alone, with spouse/partner only, with others); and the New Zealand Deprivation Index (NZDep2013: 1–3, 4–7, 8–10; 1 = the least deprived areas, 10 = the most deprived areas). Age, gender, ethnicity and living arrangement are routinely recorded by the interRAI-CA and the interRAI-HC. interRAI assessments routinely record domicile codes, a classification system used by the New Zealand Health Information Service to describe geographically based administrative units. Each domicile code refers to an area containing a median population of approximately 2,000 people. The domicile code was matched to the NZDep2013 for the area. NZDep2013 was calculated by combining Census information on access to the internet, income, employment, qualifications, owned home, support, living space and access to a car.[[18]]
Data analysis
R statistical software (version 3.6.0) was used for statistical analysis. Only the first interRAI assessment record of each person in each quarter was used for analysis. Descriptive statistics for self-reported mood and self-rated health were obtained for each of the eight quarters. The results of self-reported mood and self-rated health were stratified by the socio-demographic variables. As shown in Table 1, the socio-demographic data were unbalanced. For example, post-lockdown Quarter 1 had a higher proportion of people aged 80+ years, female, European, living alone, and living in low deprivation areas compared to pre-lockdown Quarter 1. We initially fitted models adjusting for socio-demographic variables and with an interaction between pre- and post-lockdown quarters. Next, we performed Type III Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Finally, independent sample bivariate analyses with t-Tests were used to compare each of the two primary outcomes in pre-and post-lockdown quarters (Quarter 1, Quarter 2, Quarter 3, Quarter 4). Due to the very large number of comparisons, we set the level of statistical significance at 0.001 for all analyses to minimise type I error.
Results
View Tables 1–3 and Figures 1–2.
The total number of interRAI assessments in the community were similar in the pre-lockdown (n=50,005) and post-lockdown (n=50,623) periods (Figure 2). Apart from post-lockdown Quarter 1, approximately 70% of interRAI assessments were conducted using interRAI-HC, while approximately 30% used interRAI-CA (Table 1). In post-lockdown Quarter 1, in-person interRAI-HC assessments were reduced to approximately 40%, while interRAI-CA increased to approximately 60% of total interRAI assessments. Table 1 presents the socio-demographic details of people who had interRAI assessments completed in each of the pre- and post-lockdown quarters.
Self-reported mood
Table 2 presents the results of self-reported mood in each of the pre- and post-lockdown quarters. A lower proportion of the 80+ years old age group (18.9% vs 22.9%, p<.001), women (22.2% vs 26.5%, p<.001), European (22.5% vs 26.0%, p<.001), people who lived alone (21.1% vs 25.8%, p<.001) and people who lived in the NZ Deprivation Index 4–7 areas (22.1% vs 25.8%, p<.001) and 8–10 areas (22.7% vs 26.2%, p<.001) reported sad/depressed/hopeless moods in post-lockdown Quarter 1, relative to pre-lockdown Quarter 1. There were no statistically significant changes in self-reported mood in the second, third or fourth post-lockdown quarters.
Self-rated health
Table 3 presents the results of self-rated health in each of the pre- and post-lockdown quarters. A lower proportion of the 65–79 years old age group (49.9% vs 55.4%, p<0.001), 80+ years old age group (38.7% vs 45.9%, p<.001), women (41.8% vs 49.9%, p<.001), men (48.3% vs 52.3%, p<.001), European (42.4% vs 49.4%, p<.001), people who lived alone (39.6% vs 49.0%, p<.001) and people who lived in the more deprived areas (NZ Deprivation Index 4–7: 43.0% vs 49.7%, p<0.001; NZ Deprivation Index 8-–10: 44.8% vs 53.5%, p<.001) reported fair or poor health in post-lockdown Quarter 1, relative to pre-lockdown Quarter 1. There were no statistically significant changes in self-rated health in the second, third, or fourth post-lockdown quarters.
Discussion
This is the first investigation of the psychological impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on a cohort of adults with chronic illness in New Zealand. To maximise cohort size, we utilised routinely collected national health data captured by interRAI. interRAI-HC and interRAI-CA are routinely used assessments for community-dwelling people with chronic illness who require support services. Given the many potential negative consequences of the COVID-19 lockdown on the health of people with chronic illness, we hypothesised that the community-dwelling interRAI population in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic would have worse self-reported mood and self-rated health than those in the comparative pre-lockdown period. However, we found no decreases in self-reported mood or self-rated health in the first, second, third, or fourth post-lockdown quarters.
Unexpectedly, we found the 80+ age group, women, Europeans, people who lived alone and people who lived in more deprived areas had improved self-reported mood and self-rated health in the first post-lockdown quarter relative to the comparative pre-lockdown period. These groups appear to have “benefitted” from the COVID-19 lockdown and its physical distancing restrictions in the first post-lockdown quarter from 25 March to 24 June 2020. This finding may be explained by the increased supports that were put in place during the COVID-19 lockdown. A New Zealand study suggested there were “silver linings” with improved social cohesiveness during the COVID-19 lockdown.[[19]] There were examples of increased support for some older adults and people living alone as New Zealand Government agencies, not-for-profit community organisations and academics joined forces to develop strengths-based messages and interventions that addressed the psychological and emotional needs, social connection and social recognition of older adults.[[20]] Healthcare providers also used innovative ways to deliver services to older adults during lockdowns. For example, dementia community support services used video-conferencing to deliver evidence-based group treatment for people with dementia, which provided social connection for them and their carers.[[21]] It is possible these community strategies put in place to “reach out” to people during lockdowns benefitted some of our study population.
It is also possible that New Zealand’s explicit use of an “elimination strategy” mitigated the potential negative consequences of COVID-19 lockdown on wellbeing. The stated aim of New Zealand’s first lockdown from 25 March 2020 was to eliminate COVID-19 in the community, thereby allowing a return to near normality.[[22]] This approach may have mitigated some of the negative consequences experienced by populations that experienced multiple successive lockdowns with a focus on suppression, rather than elimination. However, a global comparison between countries that pursued elimination versus countries that pursued suppression suggested that an elimination strategy was associated with a small decrease in mental health (psychological distress and life evaluations).[[23]] Further investigation into the relative merits of elimination and suppression strategies with respect to mental health outcomes is warranted.
New Zealand experienced one of the lowest cumulative COVID-19 case counts, incidence and mortality in its first wave of COVID-19 due to the timely implementation and rapid escalation of COVID-19 elimination strategies.[[24]] These strategies resulted in an unprecedented reduction of influenza and other respiratory viral infections in 2020,[[25]] which could have led to better health status and self-rated health in adults with chronic illness. However, we cannot definitively explain why self-reported mood and self-rated health improved in the 80+ age group, women, Europeans, people who lived alone, and people who lived in more deprived areas in the first post-lockdown quarter. It would be useful to determine whether similar findings were observed in subsequent lockdowns.
The lack of any negative effect on self-reported mood and self-rated health in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in this study may be explained by resilience in older adults. Older adults have been shown to be more psychologically resilient than young adults, particularly in the domains of emotional regulation and problem solving.[[26]] Two New Zealand surveys conducted within the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic and two international literature reviews concluded that older adults had lower levels of depression and psychological distress and fewer negative psychological outcomes than younger age groups.[[1,2,9,27]] A UK study of middle-aged and older adults also found older age was a protective factor for depression in women during the COVID-19 pandemic.[[6]] A European study of adults aged 50+ used a within-subject design to examine self-reported depression between 2005 and 2017 and directly following the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.[[28]] It reported changes in self-reported depression prior to the pandemic were not significant across 11 European countries, but decreased by 14.5% across all countries between 2017 and 2020. A study in Hong Kong showed that loneliness, anxiety and insomnia in older patients with multi-morbidity deteriorated markedly after the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the level of depression did not change significantly, with 62.4% and 60.2% of participants scoring within the normal range on the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively.[[29]]
Strengths and limitations
Our study has a large sample size of 45,349 adults aged 40+ years in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 45,553 adults aged 40+ in the preceding year. It is also one of the first studies that has used a globally validated assessment tool and nationwide data to examine the impact of COVID-19 on people accessing publicly funded home support services.
However, there are limitations to this study. First, interRAI assessment forms part of the process for government-funded support in order for the person to stay safely at home; our findings may not be able to be extrapolated to people with chronic illness that did not have an interRAI assessment. Second, we decided not to use a longitudinal study design because the interRAI population in the year before lockdown was not identical to the population assessed post-lockdown, so it was not possible to “pair” measurements for analyses. Instead, we used all available data and treated the pre- and post-COVID interRAI populations as two separate samples. Other New Zealand studies have used similar study designs to compare COVID-19 data with 2019 data.[[30,31]] Third, this study used a single question of self-reported mood as an outcome. We could not use the Depression Rating Scale as it is not available in the interRAI-CA. A previous study found the interRAI-CA self-reported mood question was poorly correlated with the Depression Rating Scale.[[32]] Nevertheless, other single item depression questions have reasonable psychometric properties,[[33,34]] and one was used in a longitudinal study on the impact of COVID-19 on depression.[[28]] Fourth, unlike interRAI-HC, interRAI-CA does not routinely record physical comorbidities or generate an activities of daily living functional scale. Therefore, we could not adjust our analysis to these variables. Fifth, a higher proportion of interRAI-CA assessments were completed in the first post-lockdown quarter, because face-to-face assessments were limited during the lockdown. Since interRAI-CA is conducted over the telephone, it does not include clinical observations that could assist in detecting depressed mood and subjective poor health amongst the interRAI population. Finally, our analyses were limited by missing data in routinely collected health records.
Conclusion
Self-reported mood and self-rated health of the New Zealand interRAI population were not negatively affected in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The oldest people (80+ years), women, Europeans, people who lived alone and people who lived in more deprived areas had improved self-reported mood and self-rated health in the first post-lockdown quarter relative to the comparative pre-lockdown period. A number of factors may explain these findings including resilience reserve, improved social and community cohesiveness, and community strategies put in place to “reach out” to people during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Summary
Abstract
Aim
To determine whether self-reported mood or self-rated health were affected in community-dwelling adults with chronic illness following COVID-19 lockdown.
Method
This was a repeated cross-sectional study using secondary data. We included New Zealanders aged 40+ who underwent International Residential Instrument (interRAI) assessments in the year prior to COVID-19 lockdown (25 March 2019–24 March 2020) or in the year following COVID-19 lockdown (25 March 2020–24 March 2021). Pairwise comparisons were made between each pre-lockdown quarter and its respective post-lockdown quarter to account for seasonality patterns. Data from 45,553 (pre-lockdown) and 45,349 (post-lockdown) assessments were analysed. Outcomes (self-reported mood, self-rated health) were stratified by socio-demographic variables.
Results
Self-reported mood improved in the first quarter post-lockdown among those aged 80+, as well as among women, people of European ethnicity, those living alone and those living in more deprived areas. Self-rated health improved in these same groups, as well as among those aged 65–79, and among men. No differences in self-reported mood or self-rated health were found in the second, third, or fourth quarters post-lockdown.
Conclusion
Self-reported mood and self-rated health of community-dwelling adults with chronic illness were not negatively affected following COVID-19 lockdown, and temporarily improved among some sub-groups. However, the longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic need to be closely monitored.
Author Information
Acknowledgements
Correspondence
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Competing Interests
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Impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown on self-reported mood and self-rated health of community-dwelling adults with chronic illness | OPEN ACCESS
During the COVID-19 pandemic New Zealand implemented some of the strictest physical distancing restrictions in the world, including an initial national lockdown from 25 March 2020–27 April 2020.
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