Depression among elderly migrants in urban Hangzhou: a cross-sectional study

Objective To study the prevalence of depression among elderly migrants and the impacts of demographics,lifestyle,life satisfaction,living arrangements,self-rated health,and social support on the level of depression among elderly migrants in China.Methods By using multistage stratified random sampling,1 378 community-dwelling elderly migrants were recruited and interviewed face-to-face in urban Hangzhou,China,in 2013.The 30-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS)was adopted to measure depression.Binary logistic regression was used to analyze possible risk factors for depression.Results The prevalence of depression among the elderly migrants was 35.9%.Univariate analysis showed that age,education level,marital status,occupation,household income,length of stay in the current community,living arrangement,self-rated health status,quality of sleep,time spent on physical exercise,and social support were all related to depressive symptom.Binary logistic regression showed that at the age of 70 to 79 (odds ratioOR=1.827)or more than 80 years (OR=4.148),being divorced (OR=4.051),living in the current community less than 5 years(OR=1.733),having an ordinary (OR=1.677)or bad (OR=3.029)quality of sleep were the risk factors of depressive symptoms.Living with family member (OR=0.376-0.459),having an excellent (OR=0.268)or very good (OR=0.222)self-rated health status,with much more time spent on physical exercise (OR=0.831)and more social support (OR=0.931)were the protective factors.Conclusion Our study shows that the presence of depression in elderly migrants in urban Hangzhou is very common and mainly affected by age,marital status,annual household income,length of stay in the current community,living arrangement,self-rated health status,quality of sleep,time spent on physical exercise,and social support.