The effect of social support and social frailty on mental health and quality of life in older people during the COVID-19 pandemic

Social frailty is defined as inadequate participation in social networks, a perception of lack of support, or being at risk of losing/losing resources that are important for meeting social needs. Social frailty is manifested by clinical stressors such as a new diagnosis or acute hospitalization in which the system that supports the patient can be disrupted. Specifically, with the impact of social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the prevalence of social frailty could increase among older adults. Our study aims to evaluate anxiety, depression, loneliness, death anxiety and quality of life, and investigate their relationship with social frailty and social support in the geriatric population, supposed to living with increased risk of social frailty and have limited social support due to isolation during COVID-19 pandemic. This study included 136 patients aged 65 years and over who were admitted to Hacettepe University Geriatrics outpatient clinic between December 2020 and December 2021. Comprehensive geriatric assessment tests and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) and Cumulative Illness Rating Scale for Geriatrics (CIRS-G), the Templer Death Anxiety Scale (T-DAS), Loneliness Scale for the Elderly (LSE), Quality of Life Scale in Older People (CASP-19) the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 Test (GAD-7) were performed to the patients. The frailty assessment of the patients was assessed by the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI), the FRAIL scale, and the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS). The TFI was used to collect data about social frailty. The prevalence rate of social frailty was %26,7. The rate of depression, loneliness, anxiety, death anxiety, the burden of chronic disease, and frailty were higher in the social frailty group. Therefore, perceived social support and quality of life were significantly lower in social frailty group. On the other hand, as the level of perceived social support increased; loneliness, anxiety, depression, frailty, the burden of chronic disease decreased. There was a positive correlation between perceived social support and quality of life. Keywords: Social frailty, social support, quality of life, COVID-19