Temporal relationship between depression and cognitive decline in the elderly: a two-wave cross-lagged study in a Chinese sample

Abstract

Objectives: Less information is available about the temporal relationship between depression in the elderly and cognitive decline. In the current study, we (1) evaluated the temporal association between depression and cognitive decline in older adults over a 4-year period; (2) indicated which cognitive domains have a strong temporal relationship with depression.Methods: Using data from China Family Panel Studies, we examined the relationship between depression and cognition among adults aged 65 and older with a cross-lagged design.Results: The results showed that initial depression affected subsequent cognitive function, especially immediate and delayed recall, but that cognition decline did not predict depression over time.Conclusion: The findings suggest that depression precedes cognitive decline in older adults, which is of great significance for the future research of mild cognitive impairment and dementia in the elderly.

Keywords:

• Depression
• cognition
• older adults
• cross-lagged design
• temporal relationship

Acknowledgement

We thank the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data source conducted by the Chinese Social Science Survey Center (ISSS) of Peking University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Data, analytical methods, and study materials in this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Humanities and Social Science Research Project of Hebei Education Department (Grant No. SQ2023171), Medical Science Foundation of Hebei University (Grant No. 2022 X 04), Advanced Talents Incubation Program of the Hebei University (Grant No. 521100222074) and Research and innovation team of Hebei University (IT2023C07).