"The pandemic has taken its toll on us". The mental health of older people living alone in times of COVID-19.
Keywords:
Personas mayores, viviendo solas, COVID-19, salud mental, depresión, ansiedad, estudio cualitativo, teoría fundamentadaAbstract
This paper addresses the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of older people who have experienced it while living alone. It presents the results of a qualitative study, developed through semi-structured interviews, which follows the methodological guidelines of Grounded Theory both in the process of collecting information (theoretical sampling of 102 interviews) and in its subsequent coding and analysis (constant comparative method). We have identified two main themes, one on anxiety disorders (categories: emotional impact; fear of contagion; media exposure; worry and uncertainty) and the other on depressive symptomatology (categories: mood decline; domestic and social apathy; emotional support deficit; when depression comes from afar) described by older people living alone while going through the pandemic.
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