Effects of vaccination against COVID-19 on the emotional health of Peruvian older adults

Background

COVID-19 vaccination may reduce anxiety and depression. However, the pandemic significantly impacted the elderly from low-middle-income countries. Therefore, we aimed to estimate the effect of vaccination against COVID-19 on the emotional health of older adults.

Methods

We selected a nationally stratified sample of non-hospitalized adults aged 60 to 79 years who intended to receive the COVID-19 vaccine or had already received it during recruitment. We assess the fear, anxiety, and worry about COVID-19, general anxiety, and depression at baseline and after a month. We estimated the adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for each altered emotional health outcomes in those who had one and two doses, compared with those who were not vaccinated using multilevel logistic regression with mixed effects.

Results

We recruited 861 older adults. Loss to follow-up was 20.8%. At baseline, 43.9% had only one dose of the vaccine, and 49.1% had two doses. In the analysis during follow-up, those who had two doses had less fear (ORa: 0.19; CI95%: 0.07 to 0.51) and anxiety to COVID-19 (ORa: 0.45; CI95%: 0.22 to 0.89), compared to non-vaccinated. We observed no effects in those with only one dose.

Limitations

Inability to obtain the planned sample size for primary analysis. There is a selection bias during recruitment and a measurement bias because of self-reported vaccination.

Conclusions

COVID-19 vaccination with two doses in elders improves the perception of COVID-19 infection consequences. This information could be integrated into the vaccination campaign as its beneficial effect.

Highlights

• Up to 90% of elders in a Peruvian sample had at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine

• Two doses of COVID-19 vaccine reduced the levels of fear and anxiety for COVID-19

• Only one dose of vaccine didn’t had effect in any emotional mental outcome