Infodemic during Covid 19 and the repercussions on the mental health of older adults

Varinia Rodríguez has a Master’s and Doctorate in Nursing, is a Nurse Professor of Biology, and an Academic of the Faculty of Nursing of the Department of the Elderly of the University of Concepción, for which she works with studies related to adults and the elderly Within this framework, the investigation “Covid-19 Infodemic and its repercussions on the mental health of the elderly, Biobío Region, Chile” began.

Millaray Mariqueo, Science in Chile.- This research was born internally at the University of Concepción during 2020 and was approved by the Vice-Rector for Research and Development in 2021 and by the accredited Ethics Committee of the Concepción Health Service during the same year. The research team is made up of nurses, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, that is, 6 members in total plus thesis students and students who would like to help to participate in the sampling.

The objective was to know the effect on the mental health of the elderly population of the Biobío Region in the face of the infodemic that occurred during the pandemic, evaluating factors such as stress, anxiety, fear and depression.

Methodology and stages of the investigation

The project is a mixed methodology, made up of three stages. The first stage is of a quantitative, descriptive and correlational design where the phenomenon of infodemic is analyzed, measured in the number of hours that people received information about Covid-19, scales to measure mental health and bio-sociodemographic variables to be able to characterize to the elderly population in the Biobío Region.

Then, the second stage is of a qualitative nature with a phenomenological approach, where interviews were conducted with older people who voluntarily participated in the first phase, and wanted to go to phase 2.

In the third stage, an analysis of experts will be sought so that they can generate preventive measures in mental health problems in the elderly.

Chosen target: Older adults from Biobío

“We work with older adults from the Biobío Region, together with thesis students who were trained to work and be able to interview older people by telephone, the idea was to do a snowball-style sampling, where when interviewing the older adult he/she tell us which other person to interview. And pAt the same time, in addition, I presented this at the Seremi del Biobío, and they provided me with some institutions with older people with whom they worked, which allowed us to reach older people by phone or online,” said Varinia.

Among the results obtained, the academic highlights that aging is characterized by being feminine, as is shown in international and national statistics.

Therefore, the majority were women with an age range from 61 to 87 years, the majority were married or, followed by those who are widowed, on the other hand, they generally lived with more people and in their own home, the majority they have high school studies, but very few with higher education. A large part of them is attended by a public health system and most of their income is given by pension or retirement, mostly it was a monthly income less than or equal to 300 thousand pesos.

“They mentioned that their income had not changed much during the pandemic and within the means of communication that they use to inform themselves are the traditional media. The television that scored the highest with 82%, in relation to the social networks used, they mainly consulted Facebook and WhatsApp”.

The more hours of information, the less stress, anxiety and depression

Unlike what occurred in other research studies, in this case, the results showed that: the more hours of information the levels of stress, depression and anxiety decreased, “this has not been seen in other studies and that called us enough attention, there were significant variables, and the hours of information that they use are inversely related to stages of depression, anxiety, stress, etc., but not with fear, because it is directly related to the hours that they are informed Regarding a subject, for example, fear was positive both for social networks, television and radio with respect to the number of deaths and the number of infected that occurred continuously “said the academic.

However, he also highlighted that there is a percentage whose mental health worsened, although the hours of information did not turn out like other international studies, there is at least 23% of people who do experience anxiety, stress or depression, which It is still important to take into account “they are people whose life expectancy is increasing and the ideal is that these older people could live longer, but also better, within everything that is both physical and mental aspects for them”.

projections

Varinia points out that the infodemic does not necessarily have to do with a particular event, such as Covid-19, but with everything that is the excess of misinformation that is given to people in any type of event, especially in health , “I see many projections with this topic and if it is also showing us that our older adults are indeed being informed and the information they are receiving is adequate, -because that is what was shown here, that they did not generate depression events , anxiety or stress compared to the number of hours they were exposed- perhaps the way of informing the older population should be reinforced and used as a method of promoting health and prevention”.

Health Alliance and Proper Communication

Finally, the researcher points out that to improve the mental health of the elderly, the media could be used to improve certain aspects of health, “given that television continues to be the information network that the elderly use the most, we should take advantage of the instances to generate educational bands related to health and to promote healthy lifestyles or also to prevent possible diseases”. In addition, he mentions that there is also a percentage of older adults who use social networks, which could be used to use these social networks positively, “so I think that we have a great challenge there and that is that those of us who work in health and communications can generate alliances to generate these positive aspects, health promoters towards the population and in this case especially, to the elderly”.