The Faroese Septuagenarians cohort: A comparison of well-being before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among older home-dwelling Faroese

Aims: Despite success in avoiding morbidity and mortality in the oldest members of the population during the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis may have affected the well-being of older adults, for example due to social distancing measures. The aim of this study was to examine the well-being of older Faroese by conducting a direct comparison of well-being indicators on the same group of elderly people before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Data were collected from 227 home-dwelling adults aged 82-86 years from the Faroese Septuagenarians cohort. The pre-COVID-19 period was from December 2017 to January 2019, and the COVID-19 period was from 8 June to 15 July 2020. Three aspects of well-being were assessed: loneliness, self-rated health and quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF). Results: During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were significant increases in loneliness (21.8% vs. 6.8%; p<0.001) and in worse self-rated health compared to the previous year (37.2% vs. 19.0%; p<0.001). In terms of quality of life, the domains of overall quality of life (74.33 +/- 14.96 vs. 71.88 +/- 15.21; p=0.04) and physical health (73.81 +/- 17.11 vs. 71.66 +/- 17.37; p=0.03) deteriorated. On the other hand, the domains of social relationships (78.87 +/- 16.52 vs. 85.81 +/- 13.35; p<0.001), environment (82.49 +/- 10.78 vs. 87.06 +/- 7.88; p<0.001) and psychological health (77.07 +/- 11.52 vs. 80.53 +/- 10.89; p<0.001) improved during the pandemic. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that attention should be directed to loneliness and physical well-being amongst home-dwelling old adults, despite the elderly showed resilience and improved psychological health, social relations and environment domains in a quality of life assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic.