| Keywords |
COVID-19 pandemic; Elderly; Lifestyle; Mental well-being; Life satisfaction |
| Abstract |
The purpose of this study is to compare elderly people's lifestyle, mental health, and life satisfaction before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to identify the relationship between lifestyle changes and changes in mental well-being and life satisfaction. A survey was conducted in the form of offline interviews with 283 elderly people living in Y-city, Gyeonggi-do, from August to October 2022, and data analysis was performed on a total of 169 valid samples. As a result of the Wilcoxon signed rank test, it was found that physical activity and social participation significantly decreased during the period compared to before COVID-19, and diet behavior, mental well-being, and life satisfaction deteriorated. Pearson's correlation analysis revealed that changes in physical activity and diet behavior had a significant positive and negative correlation with changes in life satisfaction, respectively, and that changes in social participation had a significant positive correlation with changes in mental well-being. These results suggest that measures to promote physical activity, dietary behavior, and social participation should be sought to maintain the mental health and quality of life of the elderly in situations where activity restrictions are inevitable, such as another pandemic in the future. |