Impact of Eating-Alone on Depression in Korean Female Elderly : Findings from the Sixth and Seventh Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2014 and 2016 / 우울ㆍ조울병

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: Despite the lack of domestic research, eating alone has been reported to be related to depression. We investigated correlation between eating alone, and depression, among women age 65 and older.METHODS: Among women registered in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, 1,119 elderly in 2014, and 1,189 in 2016, were analyzed. Eating alone and the degree of depression were assessed, using a questionnaire and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 respectively. The relationship between eating alone and depression, was analyzed using multilevel logistic regression.RESULTS: In 2014 data, eating alone had significant effect on depression, as the explanatory power is increased to 30.4% in a ‘three meals eating alone a day’ group (β=0.128, p < 0.05), when the eating alone parameter is added to demographic factors and health characteristics. In 2016, exploitation of ‘the frequency of eating alone’ variable led to increment of explanatory power to 22.3%, that was not statistically significant.CONCLUSION: The result of this study suggests that eating alone among women age 65 and older, was a risk factor of depression in 2014, and is becoming a new life pattern as a social and cultural phenomenon in 2016.