The effect of social organization participation on depressive symptoms in older adults: A comparison between political groups and general groups

• Main Authors: Chang-ChihWang, 王昶智
• Other Authors: Susan C. Hu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/h4td42

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 公共衛生研究所 === 105 === The purpose of this longitudinal study is to examine the effect of social organization participation on depressive symptoms in Taiwanese older adults, including political groups and general groups. A nationally representative dataset “Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging (TLSA)” collected in 1999, 2003 and 2007 was used. Data from the fixed cohort of 2922 participants aged 55 years and over in 1999 was recruited. Depressive symptoms were measured by ten-item Chinese version of Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D10). Social organization participation in 1999 and 2003 was categorized into two types: participation category and participation wave. The former was divided into three groups: (1) ever political participation, (2) ever general participation, and (3) no participation. Mixed effect model was used to examine the effect of social organization participation on subsequent depressive symptoms. After controlling confounders, compared with no participation group, those with ever political participation(β=-0.540，p〈0.05) and ever general participation(β=-0.962，p〈0.001) predicted significantly lower CES-D10 mean score. However, participants in the groups of ever political participation seemed to increase the score of CES-D10 over time, whereas the group of ever general participation didn't do so. This result may indicate different tendency to the average depression scores between the groups of ever political participation and ever general participation, and future research is needed.