[Depressive symptoms and related risk factors in old and oldest-old elderly people with arthritis].
OBJECTIVE
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.


CONCLUSIONS
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.
An
Ji-Yeon
JY
Department of Nursing, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea. anjiyeon75@hanmail.net
Tak
Young-Ran
YR
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001168:Arthritis / Q000523:psychology*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D015897:Comorbidity; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D012307:Risk Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors