Trauma, personality, and depression among middle-aged and older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: Survivors of early trauma are more likely to experience depression in middle and older adulthood as well as lasting influences on personality, grief, and interpersonal problems. This mixed-methods study investigates factors associated with early trauma and depression among middle-aged and older adults who experienced loss during the pandemic. METHOD: test, correlation, and regression techniques, while qualitative analyses followed an iterative process. RESULTS: = .006). Early trauma and interpersonal problems were not significantly associated with depression after accounting for variance due to personality traits. Qualitative analyses yielded themes of re-encountering problems faced in childhood and adaptation or continuity of interpersonal strategies from childhood. CONCLUSIONS: Personality traits associated with trauma were significantly associated with depressive symptoms among bereaved middle-aged and older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. Early trauma may influence depression in later life with regard to difficulty with adaptation to novel contexts and challenges. Future studies with a more sociodemographically diverse sample are needed to replicate and extend our findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).