La depresión en adultos mayores por covid- 19 durante la emergencia sanitaria

Abstract

The elderly are considered a vulnerable group within the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador, so they require special attention to guarantee their quality of life, however, when the Covid-19 pandemic occurs worldwide, all people areThey were forced into social isolation, this situation affected the emotional healthof older adults, for this reason this research aims to analyze the presence ofdepression in older adults due to COVID-19 during the health emergency. Themethodology that was applied is the meta-analysis where inclusion and exclusioncriteria were established for the selection of research. Among the main findingsthat were obtained, the average age of adults over 71 years of age, 49% weremale and 51% female. The prevalent generative factors for the development of depression were fear of contracting the disease and confinement. The clinicalcharacteristics that they denoted were the difficulty of sleep, sadness, anddecreased appetite with p values lower than 0.05, which makes them significantwithin the disease. Based on these triggers, the levels of depression that older adults presented in the different investigations were moderate depression (31%,p = 0.03) and severe depression (25%, p = 0.01). These results allow us toconclude that depression is a disease that was found latent in older adults duringthe time of the pandemic, significantly affecting their quality of life.