Alcohol Consumption and Depression: 10-year Follow-up Study in an Elderly Cohort
Date Issued
2008
Date
2008
Author(s)
Yu, Shu-Han
Abstract
Objectives: To examine the relations of alcohol consumption to the courses of depression in a 10-year follow-up elderly cohort in Taiwan. Methods: A prospective cohort study of the Taiwanese elderly people aged 60 and older was carried out since 1989. Participants were interviewed face-to-face during home visits and then were followed with intervals for every three to four years. Alcohol consumption, social activities, health conditions, physical functions and lifestyles were inquired and recorded. Alcohol consumption in our analyses included current drinking state, drinking frequency, and monthly drinking quantity. Depression was measured with the 10-item short form of Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale. Grouping of depression course based on 10-item CES-D scores of the prior four waves (1989, 1993, 1996 and 1999) had been generated in previous research, and were groups with persistently low depression, persistently mild depression, late-peak depression, and high-chronic depression, respectively. The group assignment was used as the outcome variable in our study. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was applied to analyze the relations of alcohol consumption to grouping of depression course. Results: Current alcohol drinking at baseline was correlated with male gender, being aborigines or mainland Chinese, younger age group, tobacco smoking, less functional impairment, and better self-rated health. At baseline, as the severity of depression increased, the odds of alcohol consumption decreased from 1.03 for persistently mild depression to 0.89 for late-peak depression and 0.62 for high-chronic depression, though individual adjusted odds ratio (aOR) did not reach statistical significance. In terms of drinking frequency and monthly drinking quantity, there seemed to be non-linear relationships between levels of alcohol consumption and mild or moderated depression. Among these, the aOR of late-peak depression on less monthly drinking quantity reached statistical significance (0.34). In contrast, the aORs for high-chronic depression were consistently less than 1. At wave 2, similar patterns were found except the non-linear relations among mild to moderate depression course were no longer seen. Conclusions: More alcohol consumption was not associated with more severe course in depression during the 10 years follow-up. Instead, in the Taiwanese elderly cohort with relatively modest alcohol consumption, those with stable mood tend to drink alcohol. Alcohol consumption among the elderly may be the proxy of better healthy condition and more active, sociable lifestyles.
Subjects
depression
alcohol consumption
the elderly
repeated measure
prospective cohort study
Type
thesis
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