The objective of this study was to determine whether the severity of depressive symptoms was linked to healthy behaviors in Polish postmenopausal women and whether the strength of the link differed between women living in urban versus rural settings. The study was conducted in 2018 in the Lublin region of Poland and included 396 postmenopausal women (239 living in rural areas and 157 in urban areas). The severity of depressive symptoms was evaluated by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the frequency of healthy behaviors was assessed using the Inventory of Healthy Behaviors. Postmenopausal women living in rural areas underwent menopause significantly earlier, were more often widowed, more often obese, more often less educated, and less likely to have never married when compared to those living in urban areas. Importantly, rural postmenopausal women endorsed more depressive symptoms (p = 0.049). There was a negative correlation between the severity of depressive symptoms and age in urban postmenopausal women (r = -0.174, p = 0.029), but this was not evident in rural women (r = -0.034, p = 0.600). The frequency of healthy behaviors was significantly lower in rural postmenopausal women, especially with respect to nutritional habits. A positive correlation was found between the frequency of healthy behaviors and the level of education in both sets of women (p = 0.034 and p = 0.045, respectively). To summarize, we found a significant link between healthy behaviors and depressive symptoms in postmenopausal women. We also found that this link was more evident in rural than in urban women.
Keywords: depression; healthy behavior; postmenopausal women; rural; urban.