Objectives
To assess the association of current and long-term spousal caregiving with risk of
depression in a nationally (U.S.) representative sample of older adults.
Methods
We studied married and depression-free Health and Retirement Study respondents aged
50 years and older (n = 9,420) at baseline from 2000 to 2010. Current (≥14 hours per
week of help with instrumental/activities of daily living for a spouse in the most
recent biennial survey) and long-term caregiving (care at two consecutive surveys)
were used to predict onset of elevated depressive symptoms (≥3 on a modified Centers
for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale) with discrete-time hazards models and
time-updated exposure and covariate information.
Results
Current caregiving was associated with significant elevations in risk of depression
onset (hazard ratio: 1.64; Wald χ2, 1 df: 28.34; p <0.0001). Effect estimates for long-term caregiving were similar
(hazard ratio: 1.52, Wald χ2, 1 df: 3.63; p = 0.06).
Conclusions
Current spousal caregiving significantly predicted onset of depression; the association
was not exacerbated by longer duration of caregiving.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 31, 2013
Accepted:
October 12,
2012
Received in revised form:
September 26,
2012
Received:
May 24,
2012
Footnotes
Supplemental digital content is available for this article in the HTML and PDF versions of this article on the journal’s Web site (www.ajgponline.org).
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
