Isolating together during COVID-19: Results from the Telehealth Intervention Program for older adults

Harmehr Sekhon; Paola Lavin; Blanca Vacaflor; Christina Rigas; Karin Cinalioglu; Chien-Lin Su; Katie Bodenstein; Elena Dikaios; Allana Goodman; Florence Coulombe Raymond; Marim Ibrahim; Magnus Bein; Johanna Gruber; Jade Se; Neeti Sasi; Chesley Walsh; Rim Nazar; Cezara Hanganu; Sonia Berkani; Isabelle Royal; Alessandra Schiavetto; Karl Looper; Cyrille Launay; Emily G McDonald; Dallas Seitz; Sanjeev Kumar; Olivier Beauchet; Bassam Khoury; Stephane Bouchard; Bruno Battistini; Pascal Fallavollita; Marc Miresco; Marie-Andrée Bruneau; Ipsit Vahia; Syeda Bukhari; Soham Rej

doi:10.3389/fmed.2022.948506

Isolating together during COVID-19: Results from the Telehealth Intervention Program for older adults

Front Med (Lausanne). 2022 Oct 11:9:948506. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2022.948506. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Harmehr Sekhon^{1

2

3

4}, Paola Lavin^{2

3}, Blanca Vacaflor^{3

5}, Christina Rigas^{1

2

3}, Karin Cinalioglu^{1

2

3}, Chien-Lin Su³, Katie Bodenstein^{1

2

3}, Elena Dikaios³, Allana Goodman², Florence Coulombe Raymond³, Marim Ibrahim³, Magnus Bein³, Johanna Gruber³, Jade Se³, Neeti Sasi³, Chesley Walsh^{2

3}, Rim Nazar³, Cezara Hanganu^{2

3}, Sonia Berkani^{1

2}, Isabelle Royal², Alessandra Schiavetto², Karl Looper^{1

2}, Cyrille Launay^{1

2}, Emily G McDonald⁶, Dallas Seitz⁷, Sanjeev Kumar⁸, Olivier Beauchet², Bassam Khoury⁹, Stephane Bouchard¹⁰, Bruno Battistini¹¹, Pascal Fallavollita¹², Marc Miresco¹, Marie-Andrée Bruneau¹³, Ipsit Vahia⁴, Syeda Bukhari^{2

3}, Soham Rej^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
² Jewish General Hospital/Lady Davis Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada.
³ GeriPARTy Research Lab, Montreal, QC, Canada.
⁴ McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
⁵ Pierre-Boucher Hospital, Longueuil, QC, Canada.
⁶ Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
⁷ Department of Psychiatry, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
⁸ Geriatric Clinical Research, The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, ON, Canada.
⁹ Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
¹⁰ Department of Psychoeducation and Psychology, Université du Quebec en Outaouais, Gatineau, QC, Canada.
¹¹ Quebec Heart and Lung Institute, Department of Medicine, Laval University, Quebec City, QC, Canada.
¹² Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
¹³ Department of Psychiatry, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada.

Abstract

Background: A pressing challenge during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond is to provide accessible and scalable mental health support to isolated older adults in the community. The Telehealth Intervention Program for Older Adults (TIP-OA) is a large-scale, volunteer-based, friendly telephone support program designed to address this unmet need.

Methods: A prospective cohort study of 112 TIP-OA participants aged ≥60 years old was conducted in Quebec, Canada (October 2020-June 2021). The intervention consisted of weekly friendly phone calls from trained volunteers. The primary outcome measures included changes in scores of stress, depression, anxiety, and fear surrounding COVID-19, assessed at baseline, 4 and 8-weeks. Additional subgroup analyses were performed with participants with higher baseline scores.

Results: The subgroup of participants with higher baseline depression scores (PHQ9 ≥10) had significant improvements in depression scores over the 8-week period measured [mean change score = -2.27 (±4.76), 95%CI (-3.719, -0.827), p = 0.003]. Similarly, participants with higher baseline anxiety scores (GAD7 ≥10) had an improvement over the same period, which, approached significance (p = 0.06). Moreover, despite peaks in the pandemic and related stressors, our study found no significant (p ≥ 0.09) increase in stress, depression, anxiety or fear of COVID-19 scores.

Discussion: This scalable, volunteer-based, friendly telephone intervention program was associated with decreased scores of depression and anxiety in older adults who reported higher scores at baseline (PHQ 9 ≥10 and GAD7 ≥10).

Keywords: COVID-19; anxiety; depression; isolation; mental health support; older adults; stress; telehealth.

Copyright © 2022 Sekhon, Lavin, Vacaflor, Rigas, Cinalioglu, Su, Bodenstein, Dikaios, Goodman, Raymond, Ibrahim, Bein, Gruber, Se, Sasi, Walsh, Nazar, Hanganu, Berkani, Royal, Schiavetto, Looper, Launay, McDonald, Seitz, Kumar, Beauchet, Khoury, Bouchard, Battistini, Fallavollita, Miresco, Bruneau, Vahia, Bukhari and Rej.