title: Depressive Symptoms of Older Adults Living Alone: The Role of Community Characteristics.
abstract: Although some evidence suggests that community characteristics may play an important role in the development of depressive symptoms among older adults, current literature has not attended to the role of community characteristics in depression in South Korea. This study begins to address this gap in the literature by examining the relationship of community characteristics and depressive symptoms, controlling for individual characteristics. Using a cross-sectional design and probability sampling, we surveyed 949 older adults living alone in 70 communities in the Busan metropolitan area in South Korea in 2012. A multilevel logistic regression analysis was conducted to test the hypothesis that community characteristics are predictive of depressive symptoms. We find that both the proportion of older adults and the number of senior citizen facilities in a community are associated with depressive symptoms, whereas community poverty is not related to depressive symptoms. Men with lower income, with lower levels of functional abilities, and without stronger family and friend social networks have a higher risk of depressive symptoms. Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed.
authors.affiliation: School of Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA kkim@ssw.umaryland.edu.
authors.forename: Kyeongmo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Welfare, Dong-Eui University, Busan, South Korea.
authors.forename: Minhong
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D055361:Multilevel Analysis; D011203:Poverty / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D056910:Republic of Korea; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D012944:Social Support
keywords: South Korea; community; depressive symptoms; multilevel modeling; older adults living alone