SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL-FACTORS AND DEPRESSION IN OLD-AGE

This community‐based epidemiological study is concerned with relationships between social and environmental factors and depression in a Finnish population aged 60 years or over. A greater proportion of depressed than non‐depressed men had retired and did not work at all. The occurrence of depression in both sexes was related to retirement because of sickness rather than age, a small number of rooms in their homes, low numbers of hobbies, lack of intimate friendships, and the occurrence of many long‐standing and current social stress factors. Positive associations were also found in the men between the occurrence of depression and moving due to poor health, widowed or divorced marital status, being frequently alone and the fear of death, while a positive relationship was found between the occurrence of depression and low social participation in the women. In addition, the depressed women felt that elderly people were not appreciated. Also, the depressed women felt their relationships with their spouse, children, daughters‐in‐law and friends to be more distant than did their non‐depressed counterparts. This finding suggests that family dynamics plays an important role in depression in elderly women. Copyright © 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.