Sironi, Maria;
Di Gessa, Giorgio;
Tanaka, Eizaburo;
(2025)
Partnership Quality and Mental Health Among Older Adults in England Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Journal of Applied Gerontology
10.1177/07334648251355676.
(In press).
Preview |
PDF
tanaka-et-al-2025-partnership-quality-and-mental-health-among-older-adults-in-england-amid-the-covid-19-pandemic.pdf - Published Version Download (598kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Using longitudinal data from Wave 9 (2018/19) and two COVID-19 sub-studies of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (N = 4994), we examined how partnership status and relationship quality in the early months of the pandemic (June/July 2020) related to depression, anxiety, and life satisfaction (November/December 2020) among older people. Associations were analyzed using logistic regression models while controlling for socioeconomic and demographic factors as well as pre-pandemic mental health. We found that respondents in poor-quality partnerships reported higher depression (OR = 2.79, 95% CI = 2.07–3.76), anxiety (OR = 2.62, 95% CI = 1.74–3.94), and low life satisfaction (OR = 2.19, 95% CI = 1.67–2.86) than those in fair partnerships. Results also indicate that better partnership quality was associated with better mental health, while being in a poor partnership was as detrimental to mental health as not having a cohabiting partner. Relationship quality is important for mental health, particularly when policies restricting contact and mobility may exacerbate relational issues.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Partnership Quality and Mental Health Among Older Adults in England Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/07334648251355676 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/07334648251355676 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
| Keywords: | depression, life satisfaction, anxiety, longitudinal, cohabiting partner, relationship quality |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10210454 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
