title: Using and interpreting mental health measures in the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) included five unique mental health measures in Waves 1 and 2 that researchers can use to measure the overall emotional health of participants: depressive symptoms, happiness-unhappiness, anxiety symptoms, perceived stress, and felt loneliness. For each, we detail the rationale for its development and explain how to score, analyze, and interpret results.
  
  
  METHODS
  NSHAP developed its measures by modifying traditional short-form scales to improve response efficiency and reduce respondent burden. Scoring protocols and interpretations were developed for each measure. U.S. population estimates for older adults born between 1920 and 1947 were generated using age-eligible samples from Waves 1 and 2.
  
  
  RESULTS
  NSHAP's protocols yielded U.S. prevalence rates similar to other nationally representative studies of older adults and comparable between waves. Higher estimates of anxiety symptoms and perceived stress in Wave 2 compared with Wave 1 were explained by age, administration mode, and time period. Analytic strategies for longitudinal analyses are provided. In Wave 2, mental health generally was worse at older ages, with women having more symptoms at younger ages than men. Women had fewer anxiety symptoms at the oldest ages.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  NSHAP's mental health measures were successfully integrated into the project's survey and showed acceptable external reliability as well as moderately stable individual characteristics across the 5 years between Waves 1 and 2. Depressive symptoms and unhappiness may form a mental health cluster in the elderly, distinct from anxiety symptoms, perceived stress, and felt loneliness. Gender differences in age-specific patterns of mental health were evident using the exact age of participants rather than the traditional decade groupings. Administration mode and time period (between 2005-2006 and 2010-2011) were determined to be potential confounds that need to be accommodated in longitudinal analyses of aging, whereas sample composition was not an issue for interpreting mental health measures.
authors.affiliation: NORC at the University of Chicago, Illinois.
authors.forename: Carolyn
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Payne
authors.affiliation: NORC at the University of Chicago, Illinois.
authors.forename: E C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Hedberg
authors.affiliation: NORC at the University of Chicago, Illinois.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kozloski
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, and.
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Dale
authors.affiliation: Departments of Comparative Human Development and Psychology and the Institute for Mind and Biology, The University of Chicago, Illinois. marthasecret2003@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Martha K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: McClintock
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001007:Anxiety / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008132:Loneliness / Q000523:psychology; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D012737:Sex Factors; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: Anxiety; Depressive symptoms; Emotion; Loneliness; Mental health; Stress; Unhappiness.