Age-varying relationships between family support and depressive symptoms in Chinese community-dwelling older adults

Abstract

Background: Adequate family support is an important factor in reducing the risk of depressive symptoms in older adults. We aimed to explore the age-varying relationships of family support and depressive symptoms in community-dwelling older adults.

Methods: A total of 22,163 person-waves of older adults aged 60 to 85 years from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey were included. Depressive symptoms were assessed by the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Family support was divided into instrumental family support and emotional family support. A Time-Varying Effects Model was utilized to analyze the age-varying relationships.

Results: There were age-varying relationships between family support and depressive symptoms in community-dwelling older adults. Around age 70 was an important turning point of age. In instrumental family support, access to living care can reduce the risk of depressive symptoms in almost all age groups. At least medium-level financial support was required to be protective against depressive symptoms, and high-level financial support was necessary after age 70. In emotional family support, meeting children with high frequency was significantly associated with a lower risk of depressive symptoms before age 70. Contacting children with low or medium frequency added the risk of depressive symptoms before age 70.

Limitations: Limited sample size of participants aged 80 years and above, lack of assessment for expectations of family support.

Conclusions: Providing the appropriate type and intensity of family support for older adults at a suitable age was encouraged. Future research should further verify and explicate the age-varying relationships longitudinally.

Keywords: Age; China; Depressive symptoms; Older adults; Social support; Time-varying effects model.