Pandemic Has Been Devastating to Mental Health of Disabled Americans

Loneliness, isolation and fears of contracting COVID-19 have disrupted the lives of people with disabilities, causing high levels of depression Y anxietyfind a new poll.

Even before the pandemic, people with disabilities were more likely to experience Social isolation that your peers without disabilities.

But This survey of 441 adults conducted between October and December 2020 found that 61% of respondents who reported having a disability had signs of major depressive disorder. About 50% had probable anxiety disorder.

That is significantly higher than in previous studies in which people with disabilities had a 22% chance of being diagnosed with depression throughout life, the researchers said. In an average year, about 3% of adults in the United States have a generalized anxiety disorder and 7% have a major depressive disorder.

“Unfortunately, [this] I wasn’t surprised: many of our research team have disabilities and we’re very connected to the disability community, so we already knew the stories people were going through, but it was important to document them,” said study co-author study Kathleen Bogart, an associate professor of psychology at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

However, Bogart said the value of this research goes beyond documenting high levels of distress.

“We can see what is associated with those high levels of stressso that’s one way we can find things to intervene,” Bogart said.

People who have disabilities often have other health problems that put them at higher risk for SARS-CoV-2according to the study.

Early in the pandemic, stories about people with disabilities not getting priority when health care was rationed may have added to the isolation, the study author suggested.

Some places had explicit policies to prevent people with disabilities from receiving priority for a ventilator or COVID-19 evidence, Bogart noted. The health system often underestimates the quality of life for a person with a disability, he said.

When providers suspended “non-essential” care to prevent the spread of COVID-19 o To cope with limited resources, it meant people with disabilities couldn’t access physical therapy or surgery, the study authors noted.

“Our findings showed that anxiety and depression was associated with having experienced disability-related stigma,” Bogart said, adding that health care rationing became less common later in the pandemic.

“Still, there have been many examples that many of us have experienced during the pandemic where hospitals and healthcare workers are so tied up in dealing with COVID, that people can’t get to their regular medical care,” he said. Bogart. “And for some people with disabilities, just being able to go to physical therapy once every few weeks or have an infusion, let’s say they may need once a month, having those disorders can severely affect their daily function, their pain and all that stuff.”

The findings were recently published online in the journal rehabilitation psychology.

The study is worth noting, but it’s also small, said Rhoda Olkin, a professor in the doctoral program in clinical psychology at Alliant International University in San Francisco. Olkin was not involved in the study but did review the findings.

Olkin said he would like to see more research on the topic. Previous research has suggested rates of depression may vary according to specific types of disability.

Several factors specific to the pandemic could contribute to mental health problems in people with disabilities. For those who already have problems breathinga disease that affects breathingWhat COVID-19 often it does, it’s particularly terrifying, he noted.

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Fear of infection also made some people concerned about having attendants visit their homes, which may have caused significant lifestyle changes.

“If people went home or went to live with their parents or someone else in the family, that creates … all kinds of problems. Especially now if they become their personal assistant,” Olkin said.

People may have had to wait longer than usual to repair equipment that can affect their daily lives, such as a broken wheelchair or vehicle lift.

“All the systemic problems that existed were exacerbated during the pandemic,” Olkin said. “So, suppose you’re blind and you don’t drive. Do you feel safe getting on a bus? Do you feel safe getting on a train or plane? Paratransit systems are notoriously unreliable and you may be reluctant to being the only person on a bus in a paratransit situation with only one driver. All the systemic things, from insurance to transit systems and rules about how to get federal funds or food stamps or whatever else, all of that is exacerbated during a pandemic.

These are not new problems, he said, they are simply “more important” during a pandemic.

It is not known whether the rates of anxiety Y depression among people with disabilities have decreased since vaccines it was widely available and some services reopened.

One silver lining, Bogart noted: Some of the Social isolation and difficulties in accessing medical care were alleviated by video conferencing. That includes telehealth appointments with health care providers and social events on Zoom. Several large organizations of people with disabilities have been organizing virtual community events.

“There have been some really nice examples of the disability community coming together, especially virtually,” Bogart said. “I think we’ve all gotten a little bit better at using video conferencing, going online and things like that, and I think the disability community has been a good example of using that well.”

More information

there is more about mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Kaiser Family Foundation.

SOURCES: Kathleen Bogart, PhD, MA, associate professor, psychological science and director, Disability and Social Interaction Lab, Oregon State University, Corvallis; Rhoda Olkin, PhD, professor in the doctoral program in clinical psychology and director of the Institute for Disability and Health Psychology at Alliant International University, San Francisco; rehabilitation psychologyJanuary 27, 2022, online

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