IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v321y2023ics027795362300134x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Video call and depression among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: The JAGES one-year longitudinal study

Author

Listed:
  • Shioya, Ryunosuke
  • Nakagomi, Atsushi
  • Ide, Kazushige
  • Kondo, Katsunori

Abstract

Evidence of video call on preventing late-life depression during the COVID-19 pandemic is limited. We examined the associations of social contact (in-person, voice call, and video call) with incidence of depressive symptoms and evaluated whether specific factors (particularly, age and change in the frequency of in-person contact) affect these associations. We used longitudinal data from the 2019 and 2020 waves of the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study, including 10,523 participants aged ≥65 years in 10 municipalities. Depressive symptoms were measured by the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) score ≥5 in main analysis, and GDS-15 score ≥4, 10, or continuous variable in sensitivity analyses. Social contact represented frequency changes before and during the pandemic: non-contact (reference), decreased-contact, maintained-contact, and increased-contact. We employed modified Poisson regression analysis. Compared to non-contact of video call, the association of increased-contact of video call with depressive symptoms was insignificant in main analysis (GDS-15 ≥ 5: risk ratio (RR) = 0.89, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.79–1.01), whereas significant in sensitivity analyses (GDS-15 ≥ 4: RR = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.82–0.98; GDS-15 ≥ 10: RR = 0.71, 95% CI: 0.53–0.97; GDS-15 = continuous variable: Β = −0.17, 95% CI: −0.33 to −0.002). In-person contact was significantly associated with lower incidence of depressive symptoms (non-contact: reference; maintained-contact: RR = 0.92, 95% CI: 0.85–0.99; increased-contact: RR = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.77–0.91), whereas voice call was not. Age and change in the frequency of in-person contact did not show significant effect modifications on the associations of video call with incidence of depressive symptoms after Bonferroni correction for multiple testing. In conclusion, this study suggests that the evidence supporting video call as a way to protect against depressive symptoms among older adults during the pandemic appears weak compared to the evidence for in-person contact.

Suggested Citation

  • Shioya, Ryunosuke & Nakagomi, Atsushi & Ide, Kazushige & Kondo, Katsunori, 2023. "Video call and depression among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: The JAGES one-year longitudinal study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 321(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:321:y:2023:i:c:s027795362300134x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115777
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362300134X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115777?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tore Bonsaksen & Hilde Thygesen & Janni Leung & Mary Ruffolo & Mariyana Schoultz & Daicia Price & Amy Østertun Geirdal, 2021. "Video-Based Communication and Its Association with Loneliness, Mental Health and Quality of Life among Older People during the COVID-19 Outbreak," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(12), pages 1-10, June.
    2. Bruno Arpino & Marta Pasqualini & Valeria Bordone, 2021. "Physically distant but socially close? Changes in non-physical intergenerational contacts at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic among older people in France, Italy and Spain," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 185-194, June.
    3. Vicki A Freedman & Mengyao Hu & Judith D Kasper, 2022. "Changes in Older Adults’ Social Contact During the COVID-19 Pandemic," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 77(7), pages 160-166.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thorsten Kneip & Axel Börsch-Supan & Karen Andersen-Ranberg, 2022. "Social, health and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic from a European perspective," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 789-792, December.
    2. Jaroslaw Grobelny, 2023. "Factors Driving the Workplace Well-Being of Individuals from Co-Located, Hybrid, and Virtual Teams: The Role of Team Type as an Environmental Factor in the Job Demand–Resources Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-14, February.
    3. Aviana O. Rosen & Ashley L. Holmes & Nekane Balluerka & Maria Dolores Hidalgo & Arantxa Gorostiaga & Juana Gómez-Benito & Tania B. Huedo-Medina, 2022. "Is Social Media a New Type of Social Support? Social Media Use in Spain during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed Methods Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-20, March.
    4. Emilio Paolo Visintin & Alessandra Tasso, 2022. "Are You Willing to Protect the Health of Older People? Intergenerational Contact and Ageism as Predictors of Attitudes toward the COVID-19 Vaccination Passport," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-13, September.
    5. Woosang Hwang & Xiaoyu Fu & Maria Teresa Brown & Merril Silverstein, 2022. "Digital and Non-Digital Solidarity between Older Parents and Their Middle-Aged Children: Associations with Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-12, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:321:y:2023:i:c:s027795362300134x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.