Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Sep 4:14:1209021.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1209021. eCollection 2023.

Older adults' coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic - a longitudinal mixed-methods study

Lydia Kastner  1   2 , Ulrike Suenkel  2   3 , Gerhard W Eschweiler  2   4 , Theresa Dankowski  5   6 , Anna-Katharina von Thaler  5   7 , Christian Mychajliw  2   4 , Kathrin Brockmann  7   8 , Walter Maetzler  5 , Daniela Berg  5 , Andreas J Fallgatter  2   3   8 , Sebastian Heinzel  5   6 , Ansgar Thiel  1   9
Affiliations

Older adults' coping strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic - a longitudinal mixed-methods study

Lydia Kastner et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Introduction: Older age is a main risk factor for severe COVID-19. In 2020, a broad political debate was initiated as to what extent older adults need special protection and isolation to minimize their risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, isolation might also have indirect negative psychological (e.g., loneliness, stress, fear, anxiety, depression) or physical (e.g., lack of exercise, missing medical visits) consequences depending on individual strategies and personality traits to cope longitudinally with this crisis.

Methods: To examine the impact of individuals' coping with the pandemic on mental health, a large sample of 880 older adults of the prospective longitudinal cohort TREND study were surveyed six times about their individual coping strategies in the COVID-19 pandemic between May 2020 (05/2020: Mage = 72.1, SDage = 6.4, Range: 58-91 years) and November 2022 in an open response format. The relevant survey question was: "What was helpful for you to get through the last months despite the COVID-19 pandemic? E.g., phone calls, going for a walk, or others."

Results and discussion: In total, we obtained 4,561 records containing 20,578 text passages that were coded and assigned to 427 distinct categories on seven levels based on qualitative content analysis using MAXQDA. The results allow new insights into the impact of personal prerequisites (e.g., value beliefs, living conditions), the general evaluation of the pandemic (e.g., positive, irrelevant, stressful) as well as the applied coping strategies (e.g., cognitive, emotional- or problem-focused) to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic by using an adapted Lazarus stress model. Throughout the pandemic emotional-focused as well as problem-focused strategies were the main coping strategies, whereas general beliefs, general living conditions and the evaluation were mentioned less frequently.

Keywords: COVID-19; Lazarus stress model; coping; older adults; psychosocial factors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of the Top 15 mentioned items for coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants had to answer the question “What was helpful for you to get through the last months despite the COVID-19 pandemic? E.g., phone calls, going for a walk, or others”.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Abab P., Haroon S., O’Hara M. E., Jordan R. E. (2022). Comorbidities and COVID-19. BMJ 377, 1–2. doi: 10.1136/bmj.o1431 - DOI - PubMed
    1. AgeUK . Older people’s lives during the pandemic: age UK is listening and acting: AgeUK (2020) Available at: https://www.ageuk.org.uk/discover/2020/05/campaigning-coronavirus/
    1. Anderson M., Perrin A. (2017). Tech Adoption Climbs Among Older Adults, Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. United States of America. Available at: https://policycommons.net/artifacts/617864/tech-adoption-climbs-among-ol... (Accessed August 10, 2023).
    1. Ayalon L., Chasteen A., Diehl M., Levy B., Neupert S. D., Rothermund K., et al. . (2020). Aging in times of the COVID-19 pandemic: avoiding ageism and fostering intergenerational solidarity the journals of gerontology. Series B Psychol. Sci. Soc. Sci. 76, e49–e52. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbaa051 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Beck A. T., Steer R. A., Brown G. K. (1987). Beck Depression Inventory. New York, USA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.