Abstract
Objective
Mental disorders of the elderly population in China deserve attention. Social health is significantly associated with depression. This study aimed to evaluate the rate of depressive symptoms and to test the relationships between social health and depressive symptoms among a large sample of community-dwelling elderly adults.
Methods
We conducted a cross-sectional study among community-dwelling adults aged 60 years or above in Zhejiang Province, China. Face-to-face interviews were used to complete a structured questionnaire for all participants. We used the Social Health Scale for the Elderly (SHSE) to evaluate social health status and used the short form of the Geriatric Depression Scale to evaluate depressive symptoms. Multivariate logistic regression was used to evaluate the association between social health status and depressive symptoms.
Results
Of the total of 3757 participants included, 1887 (50.23%) were female, and the mean±standard deviation (SD) age was (70.0±8.3) years. The rate of depressive symptoms was 25.92%. The social health score was higher in non-depressed participants than in depressed participants (raw score 50.7 vs. 48.3, P < 0.001). Participants with “moderate” or “good” social health had a significantly lower risk of depressive symptoms than those with “poor” social health (odds ratio (OR)=0.55, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.46-0.66 for moderate social health; OR=0.45, 95% CI: 0.35-0.60 for good social health). The association between social health and depressive symptoms was consistent across several subgroups.
Conclusions
Social health is significantly inversely associated with depressive symptoms. The SHSE may serve as an efficient screener to identify those elderly adults with social health deficits, but systematic assessment to guide intervention merits further investigation.
概要
目 的
探究在浙江省老年人群中社会健康状况与抑郁症状的相关性。
创新点
采用专为中国老年人群设计的社会健康量表 (SHSE-S), 在中国人群中首次揭示了社会健康与老年抑郁症状的相关性, 为全面提高老年人的健康状况提供科学依据。
方 法
采用多阶段分层抽样的方法, 纳入 3757 位浙江省社区常住老年人。 采用包含 SHSE-S 和老年抑郁量表 (GDS) 在内的结构式问卷对老年人进行面对面访谈, 采用多因素 Logistic 回归模型以及亚组分析等方法分析社会健康与老年抑郁症状的关联性。
结 论
在浙江省老年人群中, SHSE-S 得分越高, 老年人抑郁症状的患病风险越低。 该量表可作为社区筛查老年抑郁症状高危人群的工具, 对促进老年人群的健康有重要意义。
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the nurses, clinicians, and management staff in the Community Health Service Center of Kaixuan, Hangzhou, China and the medical students in the School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China for their participation in and support for this research.
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Kun CHEN is the guarantor of this work and had full access to all of the data in the study. Hong-lei DAI and Zhe-bin YU conceptualized the study and designed the analysis plan. Zhe-bin YU performed all the statistical analyses and Hong-lei DAI drafted the manuscript. Liu-qing YOU revised the manuscript. Min-hua FAN, Hong-wei ZHU, Dan-jie JIANG, Mengyin WU, Shu-juan LIN, and Xiao-cong ZHANG contributed to the acquisition and interpretation of the data. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Hong-lei DAI, Zhe-bin YU, Liu-qing YOU, Min-hua FAN, Hong-wei ZHU, Dan-jie JIANG, Meng-yin WU, Shu-juan LIN, Xiao-cong ZHANG, and Kun CHEN declare that they have no conflict of interest.
All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all participants for being included in the study.
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Project supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (No. 2015FY111600)
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Dai, Hl., Yu, Zb., You, Lq. et al. Association between social health status and depressive symptoms among community-dwelling elderly adults in Zhejiang Province, China. J. Zhejiang Univ. Sci. B 20, 910–919 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.B1900207
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1631/jzus.B1900207