The current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has forced the elderly to stay home to be safe from the disease, but various information, some of which are rumors and misinformation, put their mental health at risk and make them anxious and worried. Encountering news related to COVID-19, its speed of transmission, and mortality rate can affect the mental health of people in different societies. The World Health Organization (WHO) has highlighted the role of misinformation and rumors in creating anxiety, worry, and fear, as well as spreading the social stigma of COVID-19. Since proper knowledge of the real functions and impact of the press, radio, television, and cyberspace on the opinions of people especially the elderly, is also very useful for policymakers and governers, this study aims to examine the psychological effects of the media on the mental health of community-dwelling elderly people.

This is a descriptive-analytical study with a cross-sectional design conducted in 2020. Participants were 200 older adults aged ≥60 years living in Kerman, Iran. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lack of access to the elderly, samples were selected using a convenience sampling method from two daycare rehabilitation centers under the auspices of the Welfare Organization and two pension centers affiliated to the National Association of Retirement Administrators and the Social Security Organization’s Association of Retirement Administrators. After receiving the contact numbers of the participants from the mentioned centers and obtaining permission from the relevant authorities, interviews were via phone. The questions were about their demographic information (Age, gender, education, occupation, marital status, and income) as well as three questions to measure the status of media use. The 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) was also used to assess their mental health. Finally, 20 incomplete questionnaires were excluded from the study, and the data of 180 remained questionnaires were analyzed. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS v. 21 software. Due to the normality of data distribution based on the results of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, t-test, one-way ANOVA, and logistic regression analysis were used to analyze the data.

The mean age of participants was 66.60±5.08 years; 134 reported that they follow the news related to COVID-19 via the media (74.5%). About half of them reported the local media, including radio and television was the most important source of information related to COVID-19 for them (44.8%) such that most of them used the local media once a day to obtain the information. More than three-quarters of the elderly (77.4%) had poor mental health status. Findings showed that there was no significant difference in mental health based on gender (P= 0.5) and marital status (P= 0.46). Those with a higher educational level (P= 0.002) as well as employed ones (P=0.009) had better mental health status. For logistic regression analysis, the effects of confounding factors such as education, employment status, media use, and frequency of media use were controlled. The findings of the final regression model showed that higher educational level, employment, and not using media for getting the latest Covid-19 news were the protective factors against poor mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those with academic education and employed ones were 50% and 30% less likely to have poor mental health than others (P<0.001 and 0.003, respectively). In those who used the media, the likelihood of having poor mental health was two times higher than in non-users (P<0.001). On the other hand, those who used the media several times a day to get the news related to COVID-19 were three times more likely to have poor mental health than those who rarely followed the news and information (Table 1).

The mental health of community-dwelling elderly people during the COVID-19 pandemic is affected by their media use and its frequency. In this regard, it is suggested that the elderly, while increasing their media knowledge, avoid following the news related to COVID-19, especially the news from unreliable sources as much as possible. They should receive information from reliable sources and share it after ensuring their accuracy. They should focus more on information related to disease prevention and how to deal with self-quarantine conditions to promote mental health. Media managers also need to monitor and review the COVID-19-related news considering their effect on the mental health of people, especially the elderly.

Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board of Kerman University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR.KMU.REC.1398.739).

This study was financially supported by the Deputy for Research of the Kerman University of Medical Sciences.

Conceptualization, supervision, methodology: Mozhgan Ngarestani and Vahidreza Borhaninejad; writing-original draft, investigation: All authors; writing- editing & review, funding acquisition, resources: Vahidreza Borhaninejad.

The authors declared no conflict of interest.
 

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