Evaluating the Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown on Long-Term Care Residents' Mental Health: A Data-Driven Approach in New Brunswick.
Caitlin McArthur, Margaret Saari, George A Heckman and 6 others
PMID 33232682WHAT IT FOUND
In 765 long-term care residents, lockdown was not associated with higher depression, delirium, or behavioral problems after accounting for other factors, despite fewer in-person family visits.
The dementia-lockdown delirium finding depended on how the analysis was set up.
Key findings
01In final adjusted models, lockdown was not significantly associated with depression, delirium, or behavioral problems.
02Unadjusted data showed in-person family visits dropped from 73.2% before March 2020 to 17.9% during lockdown, and depression indications dropped from 19.9% to 11.5%.
03Residents with dementia were reported less likely to experience delirium during lockdown, but this appeared only in one analysis approach and not in another.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
There were no contemporaneous control homes, so changes over time could reflect factors other than lockdown. The homes had no COVID-19 cases between March and September 2020, so the findings may not apply to outbreak settings. Several lockdown mitigation strategies happened together, including visitor restrictions, halted group activities, redeployed recreation staff, window visits, video chats, government-supplied iPads, student-facilitated virtual calls and one-on-one visits in one home, and outdoor visits; the study cannot separate their contributions. The in-person visit item could be coded as in-person for compassionate visits, family staff, or miscoded window visits. The dementia-lockdown delirium interaction was significant only with one correlation approach and not with the autoregressive approach. The interRAI may identify symptoms but not their causes.
Declared interests
The supplied text does not include a conflict-of-interest or funding declaration; the publication types list research support from non-U.S. government.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that lockdown improved mental health or that the homes' strategies worked. The adjusted models did not show a significant association between lockdown and depression, delirium, or behavioral problems, and there were no contemporaneous controls.