Depressive Symptoms and Self-Rated Health among Brazilian Older Adults: Baseline Data from the Elsi Brazil Study.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates whether having a higher number of depressive symptoms is associated with negative self-rated health even in the presence of illnesses. METHODS: This is a secondary analysis of the baseline data from the Longitudinal Study of the Health of Elderly Brazilians (ELSI - Brazil), conducted in 2015-2016, using a national sample of 9,412 people aged 50 or over. Self-rated health was dichotomized into "bad or very bad" and "very good or excellent, good or average". Depressive symptoms were assessed through the eight-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D8). Sociodemographic variables, information about unhealthy behaviours, and the number of chronic conditions were also analysed. RESULTS: Having depressive symptoms was strongly associated with bad or very bad self-rated health both in the unadjusted and adjusted analyses. There was a reduction in the magnitude of the association when the number of chronic illnesses was included in the multivariate analysis, along with the other sociodemographic variables and unhealthy behaviours (OR 1,35 95% CI 1,31 - 1,39). CONCLUSION: Having depressive symptoms may contribute towards having a poorer perception of health, even in the absence of health conditions. Self-rated health is a multidimensional construct that can accurately reflect a person's state of general mental health.