The impact of informal and formal care disruption on older adults' psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in UK

Abstract

This paper investigates how formal and informal caregiving disruptions-due to the U.K. government's non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) aimed at reducing transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus-may have affected the likelihood of psychological distress among older individuals. We model the association between disruption of formal and informal care and mental health of the elderly during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic using a recursive simultaneous - equation model for binary variables. Our findings reveal that public interventions, which are most essential for reducing the pandemic spread, influenced the provision of formal and informal care. The lack of adequate long-term care following the COVID-19 outbreak has also had negative repercussions on the psychological well-being of these adults.

Keywords: COVID-19; Disruption; Elderly; Formal care; Informal care; Mental health.