Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T19:19:04.816Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Deriving prevalence estimates of depressive symptoms throughout middle and old age in those living in the community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 November 2011

Richard A. Burns ,
Peter Butterworth ,
Timothy D. Windsor ,
Mary Luszcz ,
Lesley A. Ross  and
Kaarin J. Anstey
Richard A. Burns*
Affiliation:
Centre for Mental Health Research, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Peter Butterworth
Affiliation:
Centre for Mental Health Research, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Timothy D. Windsor
Affiliation:
Flinders Centre for Ageing Studies and Department of Psychology, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Mary Luszcz
Affiliation:
Flinders Centre for Ageing Studies and Department of Psychology, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
Lesley A. Ross
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Edward R. Roybal Center for Translational Research on Aging and Mobility, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Kaarin J. Anstey
Affiliation:
Centre for Mental Health Research, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: Dr Richard A. Burns, Centre for Mental Health Research, Building 63, Eggleston Road, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia. Phone: +61 2 6125 3132; Fax: +61 2 6125 0733. Email: [email protected].
Get access

Abstract

Background: There is considerable debate about the prevalence of depression in old age. Epidemiological surveys and clinical studies indicate mixed evidence for the association between depression and increasing age. We examined the prevalence of probable depression in the middle aged to the oldest old in a project designed specifically to investigate the aging process.

Methods: Community-living participants were drawn from several Australian longitudinal studies of aging that contributed to the Dynamic Analyses to Optimise Ageing (DYNOPTA) project. Different depression scales from the contributing studies were harmonized to create a binary variable that reflected “probable depression” based on existing cut-points for each harmonized scale. Weighted prevalence was benchmarked to the Australian population which could be compared with findings from the 1997 and 2007 National Surveys of Mental Health and Well-Being (NSMHWB).

Results: In the DYNOPTA project, females were more likely to report probable depression. This was consistent across age levels. Both NSMHWB surveys and DYNOPTA did not report a decline in the likelihood of reporting probable depression for the oldest old in comparison with mid-life.

Conclusions: Inconsistency in the reports of late-life depression prevalence in previous epidemiological studies may be explained by either the exclusion and/or limited sampling of the oldest old. DYNOPTA addresses these limitations and the results indicated no change in the likelihood of reporting depression with increasing age. Further research should extend these findings to examine within-person change in a longitudinal context and control for health covariates.

Keywords

agingdepressionepidemiologyresearch design and methodology
Type
Research Article
Information
International Psychogeriatrics , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , March 2012 , pp. 503 - 511
Copyright
Copyright © International Psychogeriatric Association 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ABS (1997). Mental Health and Wellbeing: Profile of Adults. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.Google Scholar
ABS (2007). National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing: Summary of Results. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.Google Scholar
Anstey, K. J., von Sanden, C., Sargent-Cox, K. and Luszcz, M. A. (2007). Prevalence and risk factors for depression in a longitudinal, population-based study including individuals in the community and residential care. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 15, 497–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anstey, K. J. et al. (2010a). Estimates of probable dementia prevalence from population-based surveys compared with dementia prevalence estimates based on meta-analyses. BMC Neurology, 10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anstey, K. J. et al. (2010b). Cohort profile: the Dynamic Analyses to Optimize Ageing (DYNOPTA) project. International Journal of Epidemiology, 39, 44–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anstey, K. J. et al. (in press). Quantifying a gap in Australian epidemiological research: an analysis of sparse population-based data on Older Indigenous Australians. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.Google Scholar
Beekman, A. T., Kriegsman, D. M., Deeg, D. J. and van Tilburg, W. (1995). The association of physical health and depressive symptoms in the older population: age and sex differences. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 30, 32–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beekman, A. T. et al. (1997). Criterion validity of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale (CES-D): results from a community-based sample of older subjects in the Netherlands. Psychological Medicine, 27, 231–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beekman, A. T., Copeland, J. R. and Prince, M. J. (1999). Review of community prevalence of depression in later life. British Journal of Psychiatry, 174, 307–311.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bergdahl, E. et al. (2005). Depression among the oldest old: the Umea 85 +study. International Psychogeriatrics, 17, 557–575.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Blazer, D. G. and Hybels, C. F. (2005). Origins of depression in later life. Psychological Medicine, 35, 1241–1252.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chong, M. Y. et al. (2001). Community study of depression in old age in Taiwan: prevalence, life events and socio-demographic correlates. British Journal of Psychiatry, 178, 29–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Drayer, R. A. et al. (2005). Somatic symptoms of depression in elderly patients with medical comorbidities. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 20, 973–982.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forsell, Y., Jorm, A. F., von Strauss, E. and Winblad, B. (1995). Prevalence and correlates of depression in a population of nonagenarians. British Journal of Psychiatry, 167, 61–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gill, S. C. et al. (2006). Mental health and the timing of men's retirement. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 41, 515–522.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gill, S. C., Butterworth, P., Rodgers, B. and Mackinnon, A. (2007). Validity of the mental health component scale of the 12-item Short-Form Health Survey (MCS-12) as measure of common mental disorders in the general population. Psychiatry Research, 152, 63–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldberg, D., Bridges, K., Duncan-Jones, P. and Grayson, D. (1988). Detecting anxiety and depression in general medical settings. British Medical Journal, 297, 897–899.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henderson, A. S. (1994). Does ageing protect against depression? Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 29, 107–109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jorm, A. F. (2000). Does old age reduce the risk of anxiety and depression? A review of epidemiological studies across the adult life span. Psychological Medicine, 30, 11–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jorm, A. F. et al. (1995). The Psychogeriatric Assessment Scales: a multi-dimensional alternative to categorical diagnoses of dementia and depression in the elderly. Psychological Medicine, 25, 447–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kessler, R. C. and Ustun, T. B. (2004). The World Mental Health (WMH) Survey Initiative Version of the World Health Organization (WHO) Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 13, 93–121.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kessler, R. C. et al. (2010). Age differences in major depression: results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R). Psychological Medicine, 40, 225–237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Korten, A. and Henderson, S. (2000). The Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Well-Being: common psychological symptoms and disablement. British Journal of Psychiatry, 177, 325–330.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lyness, J. M. et al. (1995). Older age and the underreporting of depressive symptoms. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 43, 216–221.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Noale, M. et al. (2005). Predictors of mortality: an international comparison of socio-demographic and health characteristics from six longitudinal studies on aging: the CLESA project. Experimental Gerontology, 40, 89–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Connor, D. W. (2006). Do older Australians truly have low rates of anxiety and depression? A critique of the 1997 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 40, 623–631.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Piccinin, A. and Hofer, S. (2008). Integrative analysis of longitudinal studies on aging: Collaborative research networks, meta-analysis, and optimizing future studies. In Hofer, S. M. and Alwin, D. F. (eds.), Handbook on Cognitive Aging: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Pirkis, J. et al. (2009). The community prevalence of depression in older Australians. Journal of Affective Disorders, 115, 54–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Radloff, L. and Teri, L. (1986). The use of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale with older adults. In Brink, T. (ed.), Clinical Gerontology: A Guide to Assessment and Intervention. New York: Haworth Press.Google Scholar
Rumpf, H. J., Meyer, C., Hapke, U. and John, U. (2001). Screening for mental health: validity of the MHI-5 using DSM-IV Axis I psychiatric disorders as gold standard. Psychiatry Research, 105, 243–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Skapinakis, P., Lewis, G., Araya, R., Jones, K. and Williams, G. (2005). Mental health inequalities in Wales, UK: multi-level investigation of the effect of area deprivation. British Journal of Psychiatry, 186, 417–422.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snowdon, J. (2001). Prevalence of depression in old age. British Journal of Psychiatry, 178, 476–477.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steffens, D. C., Fisher, G. G., Langa, K. M., Potter, G. G. and Plassman, B. L. (2009). Prevalence of depression among older Americans: the Aging, Demographics and Memory Study. International Psychogeriatrics, 21, 879–888.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stek, M. L., Gussekloo, J., Beekman, A. T., van Tilburg, W. and Westendorp, R. G. (2004). Prevalence, correlates and recognition of depression in the oldest old: the Leiden 85-plus study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 78, 193–200.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Windsor, T. D., Rodgers, B., Butterworth, P., Anstey, K. J. and Jorm, A. F. (2006). Measuring physical and mental health using the SF-12: implications for community surveys of mental health. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 40, 797–803.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed