Systematic Review of Intervention to Reduce Depression in Older Adults during COVID-19

Background: The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has negative outcomes on older adults’ mental health and increases their risk for depression. Depression was reported to have various negative influences on their health. Therefore, there is a need to comprehensively understand how to reduce their depression under pandemic. This study aims to systematically review what interventions can reduce depression in older adults and how practitioners carry out the intervention during COVID-19. 

Methods: A systematic search was carried out using MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, PsycINFO, Scopus, Cochrane Library and Google scholar with a combination of keywords. Two authors selected the studies according to the inclusion criteria, extracted the data independently and assessed the risk of bias using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP). 

Results: 20 articles were included and reported. Most of the interventions adopts RCT design and show significant lower depressive scores in experimental group than control group. The interventions could be categorized into physical intervention (n=6), psychological intervention (n=9) and other types of intervention (n=5). Especially, physical exercise was applied frequently in physical intervention and CBT was a frequent used therapy in psychological intervention. The majority of psychological interventions were implemented online, while physical interventions were implemented face-to-face with infection prevention measures. 

Conclusions: The results of review are consistent with previous literature showing CBT and physical exercise are helpful to reduce depression of older people. Moreover, the review shows the feasibility of diverse ways to implement interventions under pandemic such as combining CBT with other elements, and using various ICT to apply therapy.