Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences
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Epidemiol Psychiatr Sci · Apr 2017
Chronic and remitting trajectories of depressive symptoms in the elderly. Characterisation and risk factors.
In elderly general population sub-syndromal clinically significant levels of depressive symptoms are highly prevalent and associated with high co-morbidity and increased mortality risk. However changes in depressive symptoms over time and etiologic factors have been difficult to characterise notably due to methodological shortcomings. Our objective was to differentiate trajectories of depressive symptoms over 10 years in community-dwelling elderly men and women using statistical modelling methods which take into account intra-subject correlation and individual differences as well as to examine current and life-time risk factors associated with different trajectories. ⋯ This prospective study was able to differentiate patterns of chronic and remitting depressive symptoms in elderly people with distinct symptom courses and risk factors for men and women. These findings may inform prevention programmes designed to reduce the chronic course of depressive symptomatology.