The prevalence of depressive symptoms and associated factors in middle-aged and elderly Chinese people

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of depressive symptoms and associated factors in middle-aged and elderly people in China.

Methods: Data were obtained from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2018. We selected 16,767 respondents over the age of 45 as samples for research and analysis. A short version of the Center for Epidemiological Research Depression Scale (CES-D) was used to assess depressive symptoms. Chi-square test and multiple logistic regression analysis were used to explore the related factors of depressive symptoms. Back Propagation neural network model was established to examine the ranking of influencing factors of depressive symptoms.

Results: There was 24.1% prevalence of depressive symptoms among the respondents. The 14 important variables affecting depressive symptoms were screened out with the multivariable logistic regression. Based on the BP neural network to rank the degree of importance, the top five important variables were determined, which were subjective well-being (100.0%), self-reported health (92.0%), life satisfaction (83.4%), ADL disability (74.0%), and marital status (69.7%).

Limitations: This study was a cross-sectional study, and causality cannot be determined.

Conclusions: The prevalence of depressive symptoms in middle-aged and elderly Chinese people was high. Subjective quality of life evaluation, health condition and marital status were important factors that have an impact on depressive symptoms.

Keywords: Chinese; Depressive symptoms; Middle-age elderly people; Prevalence.