Stay Connected: Testing an Intervention to Combat Coronavirus-related Social Isolation Among Older Adults

Summary

This study will use the University of Washington's ALACRITY Center's (UWAC) Discover, Design, Build, \& Test (DDBT) method to develop and test an intervention to address the mental health health needs of older adults in senior housing ("clients") who are forced to not only shelter-in-place but cannot have family or other visitors during this time. Older people (those over 60 years in age) are especially vulnerable and are more likely to have severe - even deadly - coronavirus infection than other age groups. These facts led to the need to have older adults socially isolate in order to protect their health; visits with family and friends are limited, and in senior housing (independent, supported and assisted care residences) have limited such visits by family to one person a day. This necessary practice of social distancing, while addressing an important public health crisis, unintentionally creates social isolation and loneliness, another deadly epidemic amongst the older population. Even before COVID-19, social isolation and loneliness was a prominent mental health and social problem in the aged, one that is associated with increases in other chronic conditions, dementia and suicide. Effective interventions for social isolation exist but are difficult to access and may not address all the concerns older adults have about this particular period of social isolation. The purpose of this proposed study is to deploy an adaptation of Behavioral Activation Therapy called Stay Connected to treat depression in older adults. The adaptation will allow activity directors and staff ("clinicians") in these settings and senior centers to deliver the therapeutic elements of the intervention (behavioral activation) in the context of social distancing/shelter-in-place policies. Social workers in these settings will oversee the activity director and staff delivery of the intervention. The investigators are working with a variety of senior housing types (HUD certified and private systems) and senior centers in Skagit county (rural) and King county (urban) in Washington (WA) so that the resulting intervention is not tied to economic levels or access to digital technology.

Conditions

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Loneliness

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Stay Connected

Stay Connected is a menu-driven set of strategies to combat loneliness, anxiety and depression in older adults based on behavioral activation principles.

BEHAVIORAL

Treatment as usual

Regular check-ins, resource/referral provision

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

  collaborator NIH

• University of Washington

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Patricia Arean, PhD · University of Washington

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

60 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2021-04-09

Primary Completion

2022-06-13

Completion

2022-06-13

Countries

• United States

Study Locations