The Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms in Middle-Aged and Older Adults and Its Relationship with the Subsequent Risk of Death in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Meng-HsuanHung, 洪孟萱
• Other Authors: Shu-Chen Hu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/95nba3

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 公共衛生研究所 === 107 === Background: Various studies have indicated that both clinical depression and depressive symptoms were associated with higher risk of death in patient and in community samples. However, most previous research was crosstional or short-term design, the association between different courses of depressive symptoms and death is still largely unknown. Therefore, this study aims to explore the relationship between the trajectory of depressive symptoms and the risk of death in middle-aged and older adults in Taiwan. Methods: A total of 3134 participants from the dataset of ‘Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging (TLSA)’were analyzed. The depressive symptoms (CESD) at four waves (1996-1999-2003-2007) were used to identify the depression trajectories by Group-based Trajectory Modal. Mortality rates by trajectory were calculated over a subsequent 8-years period (2007–2015). Results: Four trajectories of depressive symptoms as high (5.6%), low (80.7%), decreasing (5.4%), and increasing (8.4%) depressive symptoms were identified. Compared with persons in the low depressive symptoms trajectory, people with a trajectory of increasing depressive symptoms (HR: 1.28, 95% CI=1.04-1.58) had a higher risk of death, but not in those with high (HR: 1.08, 95% CI=0.84-1.38) and decreasing (HR: 1.21, 95% CI=0.93-1.57) depressive symptoms. Conclusions: This study has established the trajectories of depressive symptoms in middle-aged and older adults and examined the risk of death across these different trajectories in order to provide effective strategies for prevention and treatment.