Loneliness, physical activity, and mental health during COVID-19: a longitudinal analysis of depression and anxiety in adults over the age of 50 between 2015 and 2020

  1. Byron Creese
  2. Zunera Khan
  3. William Henley
  4. Siobhan O’Dwyer
  5. Anne Corbett
  6. Miguel Vasconcelos Da Silva
  7. Kathryn Mills
  8. Natalie Wright
  9. Ingelin Testad
  10. Dag Aarsland
  11. Clive Ballard

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Abstract

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  1. Version published to 10.1017/s1041610220004135
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.30.20165415: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Written informed consent was obtained online from all participants.
    IRB: All procedures involving human subjects/patients were approved by the UK London Bridge National Research Ethics Committee (Ref: 13/LO/1578) and the COVID-19 mental health questionnaire was approved by the same committee (as an amendment) on 6th April 2020.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Study design and setting: The study was conducted with participants from the PROTECT study.
    PROTECT
    suggested: (ProTECT, RRID:SCR_004531)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations: One important limitation is the potential for bias in an on-line self-selecting sample. In particular we note the overrepresentation of women, white British people and those with a higher education, however because our analysis is focused on longitudinal patterns rather than prevalence there is still merit in identifying these trends within this sample. A second limitation is determining causation, a pervasive issue observational studies. Because the loneliness and physical activity questions were only taken during the pandemic it may be the case that worse mental health drove a decrease in physical activity and increase in loneliness. The wider literature has highlighted a causal relationship between higher physical activity levels and lower risk for major depressive disorder (but no causal relationship for the reverse) so in the context of this evidence it would be reasonable to hypothesise that maintaining physical activity during the pandemic may mitigate risk of mental health deterioration (25). A large randomised control trial would be needed to assess this but our findings pave the way for robust intervention testing. We are not aware of any studies which have conclusively shown a causal directional link between loneliness and mental health but the well-established link between the two is one of the reasons why loneliness is a critical policy area in the UK and internationally. Here we are able to show that for the first time that the association between l...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.30.20165415v3 on medRxiv
  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.30.20165415v2 on medRxiv
  5. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.30.20165415v1 on medRxiv