title: The "Aging Males' Symptoms" (AMS) Scale assesses depression and anxiety.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Emotional distress may be associated with severe aging symptoms. This study aimed to investigate aging symptoms in male psychiatric outpatients and their relationship with anxiety and depression.
  
  
  METHODS
  About 176 male psychiatric outpatients aged 40-80 years were enrolled into this single-center cross-sectional study, and completed self-reported questionnaires including "Aging Males' Symptoms" (AMS) scale and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Age was correlated with less anxiety (r = -0.23), less psychological (r = -0.16) and more sexual symptoms (r = 0.31). After controlling demographic variables, the partial correlation coefficients of HADS and AMS scores ranged from 0.30 to 0.73. Four groups were defined by HADS: control (C; n = 103), depression (D; n = 18), anxiety (A; n = 26) and mixed anxiety and depression (M; n = 29). The M group had the most severe aging symptoms, and the C group the least. The A group had more psychological and less sexual symptoms than the D group. "Impaired sexual potency" was the only aging symptom in males not significantly different among the four groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Anxiety and depression was associated with more severe aging symptoms in male psychiatric outpatients. Sexual dysfunction could be regarded as the core manifestation to differentiate aging symptoms from syndromal emotional distress.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Linkou, Taoyuan, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chin-Pang
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jun-Ran
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Chun-Lin
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.forename: Shih-Chieh
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Hsu
authors.forename: Chun-Liang
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ching-Yen
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan