Depression and Related Risk Factors in the Elderly with a Focused on Health Habits, Mental Health, Chronic Diseases, and Nutrient Intake Status: Data from the 2014 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

ABSTRACT

Depression is a major health problem that can lead to mortality. This study was conducted to assess the risk factors associated with depression in a group aged over 65 years by analyzing nationally representative Korean survey data. A total of 1,209 subjects were analyzed among the participants of the 2014 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Statistical methods for a complex sample were applied by using SPSS program(windows ver. 24.0). Depression assessments were carried out by using the 9-item depression module of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Depression (PHQ-9≥5) was more frequently found in females (33.2%) compared to males (16.1%). However, there was no evidence suggesting that characteristics such as residence area, income level and age, except for educational level, were related with depression. The results of the logistic regression analysis showed that i) health habits such as smoking (OR 2.26) and lack of aerobic physical activity (OR 1.62), ii) mental health status such as bad self-rating of health status (OR 4.30), more stress (OR 8.31), and bad health-related quality of life (by EQ_5D, OR 3.41), iii) chronic diseases such as obesity (OR 0.66), hypercholesterolemia (OR 1.57), anemia (OR 1.91), and iv) low intake of energy (OR 1.84) and calcium (OR 1.71) were significantly associated with depression. This study suggests that certain characteristics of health habits, mental health status, chronic diseases and nutrient intake may be associated with depression. Prospective research on long-term control is needed to establish causal connections among those factors with depression.