Psychological effects of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020

Plangger, Unterrainer, Kreh, Gatterer, & Juen, B. (2022) published Psychological effects of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020 in GeroPsych: The Journal of Gerontopsychology and Geriatric Psychiatry.  

They begin by reminding us of the restrictions on social life imposed by the pandemic, adding that older individuals were defined as high risk with “drastic restrictions on their personal and social contacts, including the suspension of psychosocial therapies.” They examined the cognitive and emotional effects of social isolation on 49 participants who lived in nursing homes. Though the sample is small, because they had data before the social isolation imposed in 2020, their study provides empirical evidence for the “negative effects of social isolation of older people in nursing homes regarding cognitive performance, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and quality of life.”