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Factors associated with depression among elderly K oreans: the role of chronic illness, subjective health status, and cognitive impairment
Author(s) -
Park JongIl,
Park Tae Won,
Yang JongChul,
Chung SangKeun
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
psychogeriatrics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.647
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1479-8301
pISSN - 1346-3500
DOI - 10.1111/psyg.12160
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , cognitive impairment , cognition , psychiatry , medicine , clinical psychology , gerontology , psychology , economics , macroeconomics
Objectives The objective of this cross‐sectional study was to investigate the relationship between depression in elderly individuals and chronic illness, subjective health status, and cognitive impairment. Method This study used the dataset of the S urvey of L iving C onditions and W elfare N eeds of K orean O lder P ersons, which was conducted by the K orea I nstitute for H ealth and S ocial A ffairs in 2011. Participants ( n = 10 674) were randomly selected from a pool of individuals aged 65 years and older. Elderly depression was evaluated by the short version of the Geriatric Depression Scale. Multivariate logistic regression was used to investigate factors associated with depression in terms of their sociodemographic and health‐related characteristics. Results Our results revealed that chronic illness, subjective health status, and cognitive impairment were significant factors associated with depression. In particular, subjective health status showed the highest odds ratio ( OR ) ( OR for bad subjective health status = 4.290, P < 0.001), followed by chronic illness ( OR for three or more chronic illnesses = 1.403, P < 0.01) and cognitive impairment ( OR = 1.347, P < 0.001) in the final model. Interestingly, the significant association between chronic illness and depression was attenuated ( OR for three or more chronic illnesses = 1.403, P = 0.01) or even disappeared ( OR for two chronic illnesses = 1.138, P = 0.274; OR for one chronic illnesses = 0.999, P = 0.996) after adjustment for subjective health status in the final model; this may be attributable to the close relationship among the variables studied: chronic illness, subjective health status, and depression. Conclusions Development and implementation of prevention strategies, including management of chronic illness, individual's perception of health status, and cognitive impairment, could possibly reduce the impact of depression.