Observational Study
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World J Psychiatry. Jul 19, 2022; 12(7): 970-981
Published online Jul 19, 2022. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v12.i7.970
Effect of distinct psychological interventions on changes in self-reported distress, depression and loneliness among older adults during COVID-19
Stav Shapira, Daphna Yeshua-Katz, Orly Sarid
Stav Shapira, School of Public Health, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 8410501, Israel
Daphna Yeshua-Katz, Orly Sarid, The Spitzer Department of Social Work, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 8410501, Israel
Author contributions: Shapira S, Yeshua-Katz D and Sarid O designed and performed the research; Shapira S and Sarid O analyzed the data; Shapira S wrote the first draft of the manuscript; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study protocol was approved by the institutional review board of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, No. 1885-1.
Informed consent statement: All study participants or their legal guardian provided informed written consent about personal and medical data collection prior to study enrolment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code and dataset are available from the corresponding author at stavshap@bgu.ac.il. The data available include no identifiers.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Stav Shapira, PhD, Academic Research, Lecturer, School of Public Health, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, POB 653, Beer Sheva 8410501, Israel. stavshap@bgu.ac.il
Received: January 30, 2022
Peer-review started: January 30, 2022
First decision: April 18, 2022
Revised: April 24, 2022
Accepted: June 16, 2022
Article in press: June 16, 2022
Published online: July 19, 2022
Core Tip

Core Tip: The present study explored how distinct cognitive, behavioral and mindfulness interventions affect depression and loneliness via changes in psychological distress among older adults. This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to explore underlying mechanisms of change in aspects of mental health against the unique backdrop of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic among older adults. The results provide both theoretical and clinical insights into future intervention design and in regard to ways of supporting older adults during times of change and uncertainty.