• Hyuma Makizako, Hiroyuki Shimada, Takehiko Doi, Daisuke Yoshida, Yuya Anan, Kota Tsutsumimoto, Kazuki Uemura, Teresa Liu-Ambrose, Hyuntae Park, Sanyoon Lee, and Takao Suzuki.
• Department of Functioning Activation, Center for Gerontology and Social Science, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Aichi, Japan. Electronic address: makizako@ncgg.go.jp.
• J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2015 Mar 1; 16 (3): 194-9.

ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to determine whether frailty is an important and independent predictor of incident depressive symptoms in elderly people without depressive symptoms at baseline.DesignFifteen-month prospective study.SettingGeneral community in Japan.ParticipantsA total of 3025 community-dwelling elderly people aged 65 years or over without depressive symptoms at baseline.MeasurementsThe self-rated 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale was used to assess symptoms of depression with a score of 6 or more at baseline and 15-month follow-up. Participants underwent a structural interview designed to obtain demographic factors and frailty status, and completed cognitive testing with the Mini-Mental State Examination and physical performance testing with the Short Physical Performance Battery as potential predictors.ResultsAt a 15-month follow-up survey, 226 participants (7.5%) reported the development of depressive symptoms. We found that frailty and poor self-rated general health (adjusted odds ratio 1.86, 95% confidence interval 1.30-2.66, P < .01) were independent predictors of incident depressive symptoms. The odds ratio for depressive symptoms in participants with frailty compared with robust participants was 1.86 (95% confidence interval 1.05-3.28, P = .03) after adjusting for demographic factors, self-rated general health, behavior, living arrangements, Mini-Mental State Examination, Short Physical Performance Battery, and Geriatric Depression Scale scores at baseline.ConclusionsOur findings suggested that frailty and poor self-rated general health were independent predictors of depressive symptoms in community-dwelling elderly people.Copyright © 2015 AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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