‘Drawing on Wisdom to Cope with Adversity:’ A Systematic Review Protocol of Older Adults’ Mental and Psychosocial Health During Acute Respiratory Disease Propagated-Type Epidemics and Pandemics (COVID-19, SARS-CoV, MERS, and Influenza)

  1. Jose M. Aravena
  2. Cristopher Aceituno
  3. Kate Nyhan
  4. Kewei Shi
  5. Sten Vermund
  6. Becca R. Levy

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Abstract

Background

Mental health has become one of the fundamental priorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Situations like physical distancing as well as being constantly tagged as the most vulnerable group could expose older adults to mental and psychosocial burdens. Nonetheless, there is little clarity about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic or similar pandemics in the past on the mental illness, wellbeing, and psychosocial health of the older population compared to other age groups.

Objectives

To describe the patterns of older adults’ mental and psychosocial health related to acute respiratory disease propagated-type epidemics and pandemics and to evaluate the differences with how other age groups respond.

Eligibility criteria

quantitative and qualitative studies evaluating mental illness, wellbeing, or psychosocial health outcomes associated with respiratory propagated epidemics and pandemics exposure or periods (COVID-19, SARS-CoV, MERS, and Influenza) in people 65 years or older.

Data source

Original articles published until June 1st, 2020, in any language searched in the electronic healthcare and social sciences database: MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Scopus, WHO Global literature on coronavirus disease database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (中国 知网 –CNKI). Furthermore, EPPI Centre’s COVID-19 living systematic map and the publicly available publication list of the COVID-19 living systematic review will be incorporated for preprints and recent COVID-19 publications.

Data extraction

Two independent reviewers will extract predefined parameters. The risk of bias will be assessed.

Data synthesis

Data synthesis will be performed according to study type and design, type of epidemic and pandemic, types of outcomes (mental health and psychosocial outcomes), and participant characteristics (e.g., sex, race, age, socioeconomic status, food security, presence of dependency in daily life activities independent/dependent older adults). Comparison between sex, race, and other age groups will be performed qualitatively, and quantitatively if enough data is available. The risk of bias and study heterogeneity will be reported for quantitative studies.

Conclusion

This study will provide information to take actions to address potential mental health difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic in older adults and to understand responses on this age group. Furthermore, it will be useful to identify potential groups that are more vulnerable or resilient to the mental-health challenges of the current worldwide pandemic.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.04.20122812: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    RandomizationUnit of analysis issues: For treatment, in the case of cluster randomized trials or interventions delivered in groups, the unit of analysis will be the cluster.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Search method for identification of studies: Original articles published until June 1st, 2020, in any language searched in the electronic healthcare and social sciences databases: MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), CINAHL (Ebsco), PsycINFO (Ovid), Scopus, WHO Global literature on coronavirus disease database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (中国知网 – CNKI).
    MEDLINE
    suggested: (MEDLINE, RRID:SCR_002185)
    The EPPI Centre COVID-19 map consists of studies on COVID-19, identified in MEDLINE and Embase, and published in 2019 or later.
    Embase
    suggested: (EMBASE, RRID:SCR_001650)
    Second, for better coverage of preprints, we will use the publicly available publication list of the COVID-19 living systematic review31, which retrieves articles from the preprints databases bioRxiv and medRxiv and it is continuously updated.
    bioRxiv
    suggested: (bioRxiv, RRID:SCR_003933)
    Mental illness terms were included following the DSM-V and the Cochrane Common Mental Disorders group search strategies (https://cmd.cochrane.org/).
    Cochrane Common Mental
    suggested: None
    Data collection and analysis: The results from all the database searches will be collated in EndNote and deduplicated by the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library Cross-Departmental Team.
    EndNote
    suggested: (EndNote, RRID:SCR_014001)
    Observational study’s risk of bias was designed considering STROBE and the AHRQ Methods guidelines.36,37 Intervention study risk of bias follows the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews.
    Cochrane Handbook
    suggested: None

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.06.04.20122812v1 on medRxiv