Older people with asthma at higher risk for depression: Study

Recent research has discovered that older adults with asthma were at higher risk for depression during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study involved 2000 older Canadian individuals and was published online in Respiratory Medicine. The numbers were extremely worrying for older adults with asthma who had experienced depression. Approximately one-half experienced a recurrence of depression during the autumn of 2020, significantly higher than recurrence rates among their peers who did not have asthma.
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, said, “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.”
The sample came from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, a national longitudinal study of older Canadian. Although respondents with a history of depression had the highest risk, one in seven of those with 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.
Co-author Grace Li, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Victoria, said, “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. 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 shown signs of depression in the past.”
The researchers identified several factors associated with a higher risk of depression among this population, such as experiencing disruptions to healthcare access.