Prevalence and related influencing factors of depressive symptoms among empty-nest elderly in Shanxi, China

Nov 19, 2018Journal of affective disorders

How common depression symptoms are and what affects them in older adults living alone in Shanxi, China

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Abstract

The prevalence of depressive symptoms among empty-nest elderly in Shanxi province is 64.2%.

1,776 participants (36.2%) experienced mild depression, while 1,236 (25.2%) had moderate depression and 135 (2.8%) suffered from severe depression.
Health-promoting lifestyles among participants were rated at a medium level, averaging 2.51 ± 0.47.
Factors such as gender, education level, old-age provision model, exercise frequency, chronic disease, relationships with children, self-care ability, and health-promoting lifestyles are associated with varying degrees of depression.
Maintaining good interpersonal relationships and engaging in healthy lifestyle practices may help reduce depression rates among empty-nest elderly.

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BACKGROUND: In China, aging has become a serious social problem, and the number of empty-nest elderly is on the rise. The aim of this study is to clarify the prevalence of depressive symptoms among empty-nest elderly in Shanxi province and evaluate the effects of sociodemographic factors and health-promoting lifestyles so as to provide a scientific reference for preventing and intervening their depression.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study, which used a multi-stage random cluster sampling way, was conducted among 4901 empty-nest elderly in Shanxi. An independent t-test and a chi square test were used to compare the sociodemographic factors, depression scores, and health-promoting lifestyle scores of the empty-nest elderly. Multinomial logistic regression was used to analyze the potential influencing factors for depression.

RESULTS: The prevalence of depressive symptoms in the population was 64.2%. Among all participants 1,776 (36.2%) had mild depression, 1,236 (25.2%) had moderate depression, and 135 (2.8%) had severe depression. The health-promoting lifestyle of the empty nesters in this study was at the medium level (2.51 ± 0.47). Gender, education level, old-age provision model, exercise frequency, chronic disease, relationships with children, self-care ability, and health-promoting lifestyles were found to be influencing factors of depression and all variables had different effects on different degrees of depression.

LIMITATIONS: This was a cross-sectional study, so the results cannot establish causal relationships among the study variables.

CONCLUSIONS: Depression was prevalent among the empty-nest elderly in Shanxi. Maintaining good interpersonal relationships, developing extensive interests, and maintaining healthy lifestyles including good nutrition habits and regular exercises can reduce the incidence of depression among empty nesters.

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Prevalence and related influencing factors of depressive symptoms among empty-nest elderly in Shanxi, China

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