Effect of domain-specific life satisfaction on depressive symptoms in late adulthood and old age: results of a cross-sectional descriptive survey

The prevalence of depressive symptoms and associated factors in middle-aged and elderly Chinese people

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of depressive symptoms and associated factors in middle-aged and elderly people in China.

METHODS

Data were obtained from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2018. We selected 16,767 respondents over the age of 45 as samples for research and analysis. A short version of the Center for Epidemiological Research Depression Scale (CES-D) was used to assess depressive symptoms. Chi-square test and multiple logistic regression analysis were used to explore the related factors of depressive symptoms. Back Propagation neural network model was established to examine the ranking of influencing factors of depressive symptoms.

RESULTS

There was 24.1% prevalence of depressive symptoms among the respondents. The 14 important variables affecting depressive symptoms were screened out with the multivariable logistic regression. Based on the BP neural network to rank the degree of importance, the top five important variables were determined, which were subjective well-being (100.0%), self-reported health (92.0%), life satisfaction (83.4%), ADL disability (74.0%), and marital status (69.7%).

LIMITATIONS

This study was a cross-sectional study, and causality cannot be determined.

CONCLUSIONS

The prevalence of depressive symptoms in middle-aged and elderly Chinese people was high. Subjective quality of life evaluation, health condition and marital status were important factors that have an impact on depressive symptoms.

Domain-specific life satisfaction among older adults with and without children: The role of intergenerational contact

BACKGROUND

Life satisfaction is associated with many important health outcomes among older adults and is an indicator of successful ageing. The present study aims to replicate earlier findings regarding relationships between satisfaction with various life domains and life satisfaction in older adults. The study furthermore explores how parental status is associated with satisfaction with different life domains and how two types of intergenerational contact (contact with own children; post-retirement work in childcare) relate to life satisfaction.

METHODS

Participants were 1978 older adults, aged 65-75 year (51.7% female), who live in Bremen and took part in the OUTDOOR ACTIVE study. 82.6% of the participants had one or more children. All participants completed a questionnaire, which among others comprised items assessing life satisfaction as well as satisfaction with six different life domains (satisfaction with living situation, financial situation, leisure time, health, family, neighbors and friends).

RESULTS

LS is significantly related to all of the investigated life domains, independent of sex and age. For the participants with children, life satisfaction had the highest association with satisfaction with family (β: 0.202; 95%CI: 0.170-0.235), followed by satisfaction with neighbors and friends (β: 0.151; 95%CI: 0.111-0.191), and health satisfaction (β: 0.148; 95%CI: 0.120-0.176). In comparison to that, participants without children had the highest association between life satisfaction and satisfaction with health (β: 0.193; 95%CI: 0.135-0.252), followed by satisfaction with family (β: 0.175; 95%CI: 0.114-0.236) and satisfaction with neighbors and friends (β: 0.154; 95%CI: 0.077-0.232). In participants with children, there was a non-significant negative association between life satisfaction and work in childcare (β: -0.031; 95%CI: -0.178-0.116), while life satisfaction was statistically significantly positively associated to work in childcare in participants without own children (β: 0.681; 95%CI: 0.075-1.288).

CONCLUSIONS

The results suggest that the domain-specific approach to life satisfaction can elucidate differences in the correlates of life satisfaction and well-being between older adults with and without children. They further suggest that the benefits of working with children for life satisfaction may be more pronounced in older adults without children than older adults with children.

Testing of the factor structure of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale 10 in a sample of Korean "geese" mothers

The author's purpose in this study was to establish the factor structure of the Korean version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale 10 (CES-D 10) by conducting confirmatory factor analysis based on preexisting models with a sample of Korean transnational mothers (referred to as "geese mothers"). Hundred and fifty-three Korean geese mothers in the USA and New Zealand completed the Korean version of the CES-D 10 questionnaire. The resulting data was subjected to confirmatory factor analysis, which tested three competing models. Our goodness-of-fit indices for the two-factor model indicated an acceptable fit with the current sample. Our results in the present study show that the CES-D 10 can be a useful tool for understanding the concept of depression in Korean geese mothers.

Depression and Quality of Life in Older Persons: A Review

BACKGROUND

Depression is a prevalent and disabling condition in older persons (≥ 60 years) that increases the risk of mortality and negatively influences quality of life (QOL). The relationship between depression, or depressive symptoms, and QOL has been increasingly addressed by research in recent years, but a review that can contribute to a better understanding of this relationship in older persons is lacking. Against this background, we undertook a literature review to assess the relationship between depression and QOL in older persons.

SUMMARY

Extensive electronic database searches revealed 953 studies. Of these, 74 studies fulfilled our criteria for inclusion, of which 52 were cross-sectional studies and 22 were longitudinal studies. Thirty-five studies were conducted in a clinical setting, while 39 were community-based epidemiological studies. A clear definition of the QOL concept was described in 25 studies, and 24 different assessment instruments were employed to assess QOL. Depressed older persons had poorer global and generic health-related QOL than nondepressed individuals. An increase in depression severity was associated with a poorer global and generic health-related QOL. The associations appeared to be stable over time and independent of how QOL was assessed.

KEY MESSAGES

This review found a significant association between severity of depression and poorer QOL in older persons, and the association was found to be stable over time, regardless which assessment instruments for QOL were applied. The lack of a definition of the multidimensional and multilevel concept QOL was common, and the large variety of QOL instruments in various studies make a direct comparison between the studies difficult.