Depression emotion and its related factors among rural elderly during urbanization / 中国心理卫生杂志

ABSTRACT

Objectives:To investigate the prevalence of depressive emotion and related factors among rural elderly living in urban-rural fringe zones and traditional villages.Methods:Totally 1135 rural elderly were surveyed in Fuding,Fujian Province.The 10-item CES-D Scale was adopted to assess depressive emotion (score 10 or higher as having depression problem),and a self-made questionnaire was used to investigate other relevant demographical information.Results:Rural elderly lived in traditional villages had significantly higher ratio of depression than the elderly lived in urban-rural fringe zones (49.6％ vs.30.3％,P ＜0.001).Logistic regression analysis showed that the ratio of depression in elderly of traditional villages was 1.40 times that of urban-rural fringe zone after control ling other factors.Other important factors (P ＜ 0.001) related to depression were poorer self-rated health (OR =7.52),financial strain (OR =4.41),negative life event (OR =2.91),and living alone (OR =2.72) in elderly of urban-rural fringe zone,but only financial strain (OR =8.52) in elderly of traditional villages.Conclusion:Depression is more prevalently identified among rural elderly living in traditional villages,and urbanization could effectively reduce depression in rural elderly.Public policies should improve the financial and medical security,social support and so on to promote the emotional well-being among rural elderly during urbanization.