Depression and Covid: Older people with asthma at higher risk

Washington: A recent prospective study of about 2,000 Canadian older individuals published online in the journal Respiratory Medicine discovered that older adults with asthma were at higher risk for depression during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Depression recurrence cases worrying
For older adults with asthma who had experienced depression in the past, the numbers were extremely worrying, with approximately one-half experiencing a recurrence of depression during the autumn of 2020, which was significantly higher than recurrence rates among their peers who did not have asthma. Those who were lonely had substantially elevated rates of depression.

"When considering the high comorbidity between asthma and depression prior to the pandemic, combined with the loneliness associated with extended periods of lockdown and the stress over being labelled high risk for severe COVID-19-related outcomes, it is unsurprising that this population experienced a precipitous decline in mental health during the pandemic", says first author, Andie MacNeil, a research assistant at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW) and the Institute for Life Course and Aging, University of Toronto.

The sample came from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, a national longitudinal study of older Canadian.

By using longitudinal data, this study was able to differentiate among the 2,017 respondents with asthma, between those with a pre-pandemic history of depression (n=770) and those who had never experienced depression prior to the pandemic (n=1247).

Although respondents with a history of depression had the highest risk, 1 in 7 of those who had no pre-pandemic history of depression were depressed during the autumn of 2020, highlighting the toll the pandemic took on many formerly mentally healthy older adults with asthma.

"The pandemic has had detrimental consequences for the mental health of older adults, particularly those who are also navigating chronic health conditions, such as asthma," says co- author Grace Li, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Victoria. "It is important for clinicians and healthcare professionals to be screening for depressive symptoms among their patients with asthma, even among those who have not showed signs of depression in the past."

While there is a growing body of research indicating high rates of depression during the pandemic, few studies prior to this have focused specifically on the vulnerabilities among those with asthma.

The researchers identified several factors that were associated with a higher risk of depression among this population, such as experiencing disruptions to healthcare access. These findings can help to inform critical points of intervention to support this population.