The effect of sociodemographics, social stressors, health status and psychosocial resources on the age-depression relationship

This study examines how an extensive set of covariates identified in previous research - sociodemographics, social stressors, health status and psychosocial resources - influence the age-depression relationship. The analyses were based on data collected for the 1994 National Population Health Survey (N = 16,291) by Statistics Canada. Analyses were conducted using OLS regression for generalized distress and logistic regression for major depressive episode. The relationship between age and both outcomes was linear and negative after controlling for sociodemographics. Controlling for social stress reduced levels of depression among younger cohorts while controlling for poor health status reduced levels of depression among the elderly. Controlling for psychosocial resources generally reduced the level of depression among older cohorts, however, the results were mixed across outcomes. The inclusion of all covariates appears to negate the effects of one another in that the fully adjusted relationships between age and depression across both outcomes were not significantly different from their bivariate relationships