The Internet‐based Conversational Engagement Clinical Trial (I‐CONECT, ClinicalTrials.gov:NCT02871921) intervention provided interpersonal interactions with video calls to socially isolated older adults. It is hypothesized that such intervention could improve individuals' psychosocial wellbeing by increasing social contacts. This abstract examines I‐CONECT intervention effects on psychological wellbeing outcomes.

The intervention group received 30‐minute video chats 4 times/week for 6 months followed by 2 times/week for additional 6 months. The control group received weekly check‐in calls for 12 months. We used data from the baseline, six‐month and twelve‐month follow‐ups. Psychosocial outcomes were measured with NIH Toolbox Emotional Battery (NIHTB‐EB). Three domain scores, negative affect, social satisfaction, and psychological wellbeing, were calculated with 17 subscale scores weighted by factor loading. Mixed Models for Repeated Measures (MMRM) were run for the three psychosocial outcomes, controlling for age, sex, education, and experience of COVID‐19 pandemic. Participants were considered affected by COVID‐19 if any of the data points were collected after March 2020. Subsample analyses were conducted by participants' cognitive status (with normal cognition vs. MCI).

The analysis included 134 participants, 70 with normal cognition and 64 with MCI. The sample’s mean age was 82.3, 44.9% were in the intervention group, 67.0% were female, the average year of education was 15.1, and 51.6% were affected by the pandemic. For the subsamples of individuals of normal cognition and MCI, we did not find any significant change in psychosocial outcomes due to the intervention. However, both intervention and control groups increased social satisfaction scores at both 6‐month and 12‐month (Table 1, Figure 1), suggesting that weekly phone check‐ins and frequent video‐chats interactions can provide the same magnitude of improvement in psychosocial wellbeing. We observed the COVID‐19 pandemic affected social satisfaction of both intervention and control groups negatively for those with MCI but did not affect the individuals with normal cognition.

Both intervention and control groups improved in a measure of social satisfaction. Once per week 10‐minutes phone check‐ins provided for the control group seemed to be sufficient for improving social wellbeing. Implementing weekly phone check‐ins in the community might help improve psychological wellbeing among socially isolated older adults.