Age and Ageing 2003; 32: 510-518
© 2003, British Geriatrics Society
Research Paper |
Predictors of depressive symptoms in older people—a survey of two general practice populations
Departments of
1 General Practice and Primary Care and
2 Public Health Sciences, St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, UK
3 Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, UK
4 Westminster Primary Care Trust, London, UK
Address correspondence to: T. Harris, Department of General Practice and Primary Care, St George’s Hospital Medical School, Cranmer Terrace, Tooting, London SW17 0RE, UK. Fax: (+44) 20 8786 7697. Email: tharris{at}sghms.ac.uk
Abstract
Background: studies have shown strong associations between disability, social support and depressive symptoms in older people; but socio-economic effects are less clear and little is known about the role of health locus of control.
Objective: to examine the roles of physical health, disability, social support, socio-economic factors and health locus of control as predictors of depressive symptoms in older people.
Method: a postal survey of patients aged 
65 years from two London practices. Outcome measure was a score of > 5 on the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale. Associations with other factors were examined using logistic regression and expressed as odds ratios.
Results: 70.4% (1602/2276) responded and provided Geriatric Depression Score 15 data, with 23.8% (381/1602) scoring > 5. After adjusting for age, sex and practice, high depression scores were associated with: (i) physical health and disability [e.g. severe versus no disability odds ratio 26.9 (15.7–46.2)]; (ii) social support [e.g. dissatisfaction with support odds ratio 4.2 (3.2–5.6)]; (iii) socio-economic [e.g. no occupational pension odds ratio 1.9 (1.5–2.4)]; (iv) health locus of control [e.g. internality 0.6 (0.6–0.7)]. After adjusting for disability, associations with general measures of physical health were reduced but still significant, while associations with social support, socio-economic factors, and health locus of control were unaffected. All four groups of factors were included in a final model for predicting depressive symptoms.
Conclusions: disability, physical health, social support, socio-economic factors, and health locus of control were all independent depression score predictors in this study. This has implications for measures to reduce depressive symptoms in older people.
Keywords: elderly, depression, disability, socio-economic, locus of control
Received August 19, 2002; accepted in revised form March 20, 2003.
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