Depressive Symptoms and Related Risk Factors in Old and Oldest-old Elderly People with Arthritis

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: This study was to investigate the prevalence of depressive symptoms and risk factors in elderly people (old vs oldest-old) with arthritis. METHODS: The Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA) was used with a sample of 1,084 elderly people with arthritis aged 65 or above. RESULTS: We found that the prevalence of depressive symptom was greater for oldest-old people (66.7%) compared to old people (56%). Significant differences between old people and oldest-old people were found for education, living with spouse, number of generation, regular exercise, body mass index (BMI), ADL limitation, self-rated health, and depression. Significant differences existed between depression and non-depression in terms of all variables except region and BMI among old people. But, among the oldest people, ADL limitation and self-rated health showed differences. The Logistic regression analysis revealed that religion, medical comorbidity, ADL limitation, self-rated health were significantly associated with depressive symptoms in old people. But, in oldest-old people, none of the variables were associated with depressive symptoms. CONCLUSION: The findings show that there are age differences in depression and related factors in elderly people with arthritis. Longitudinal studies, which covered depressive symptom severity and which are controlled for a large number of potential confounders, will need to complement the results of this study in the future.