Abstract
Objective
This study examined the relationship between family visitation and health outcomes among older women in South Korea before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many interactions, but the impact of sudden, large-scale social restrictions on health remains underexplored.
Methods
Using data from the 2017 and 2020 National Survey of Older Adults (n = 634 each year; ages 65–90), descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic regression examined associations between family visitation and health outcomes.
Results
During the COVID-19 pandemic (2020), women in the highest visitation group had 2.36 times higher odds of being in the lower chronic disease group (odds ratio = 2.36; confidence interval [1.21, 4.59]; p < .05). Before COVID-19 (2017), the highest visitation group had lower odds of being in the low chronic disease group (odds ratio = 0.48; confidence interval [1.21, 4.59]; p < .05), indicating opposite patterns across the two periods.
Conclusion
The findings indicate that the association between frequent family visitation and the health of older women varied across different time periods.
Implications
Future studies can conduct research identifying the factors affecting these results and would benefit from a study design with a larger sample size.