Association between chronic diseases and depression in the middle-aged and older adult Chinese population-a seven-year follow-up study based on CHARLS

• Main Authors: Pengfei Zhou (Author), Shuai Wang (Author), Ya Yan (Author), Qiang Lu (Author), Jiaxing Pei (Author), Wang Guo (Author), Xiaoguang Yang (Author), Yunming Li (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A., 2023-07-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.
• Notes: 2296-2565; 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1176669
• Keywords: depression; aging; chronic disease; Chinese; mental health; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270
• Source: Frontiers in Public Health, Vol 11 (2023)

BackgroundWith the aging of the Chinese population, the prevalence of depression and chronic diseases is continually growing among middle-aged and older adult people. This study aimed to investigate the association between chronic diseases and depression in this population.MethodsData from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2011-2018 longitudinal survey, a 7-years follow-up of 7,163 participants over 45 years old, with no depression at baseline (2011). The chronic disease status in our study was based on the self-report of the participants, and depression was defined by the 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D-10). The relationship between baseline chronic disease and depression was assessed by the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards regression models.ResultsAfter 7-years follow-up, 41.2% (2,951/7163, 95% CI:40.1, 42.3%) of the participants reported depression. The analysis showed that participants with chronic diseases at baseline had a higher risk of depression and that such risk increased significantly with the number of chronic diseases suffered (1 chronic disease: HR = 1.197; 2 chronic diseases: HR = 1.310; 3 and more chronic diseases: HR = 1.397). Diabetes or high blood sugar (HR = 1.185), kidney disease (HR = 1.252), stomach or other digestive diseases (HR = 1.128), and arthritis or rheumatism (HR = 1.221) all significantly increased the risk of depression in middle-aged and older adult Chinese.ConclusionThe present study found that suffering from different degrees of chronic diseases increased the risk of depression in middle-aged and older adult people, and these findings may benefit preventing depression and improving the quality of mental health in this group.