EFFECTS OF COVID-19 ON THE MENTAL HEALTH OF THE WORLD’S ELDERLY POPULATION

Abstract

The present study is an integrative review, which aimed to understand the damage to the mental health of the elderly population caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientific evidence on the psychological impacts of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on the world's elderly population was based on one of the methods of disease prevention, through social isolation, where the elderly population became more vulnerable to loneliness, feeling of abandonment, fear of death and loss, among others. Among the most important impacts found are anxiety, depression, stress, behavioral changes, early grief, and untreated chronic pain, reaching the extreme that is suicide. The relevance of this work is due to the importance of knowing and studying the mental health of the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to help in the psychological treatment of patients in need. The integrative review technique was performed, which is a study that aims to gather other similar studies, evaluate them and gather them in analysis in order to create a new content. For the search for information, file bases such as Scientific Electronic Libraby Online (SciELO), the Portal of Electronic Journals of Psychology (PePSIC), MEDLINE, PubMed, Google Scholar were used.