Depression and infrequent participation in social activities among older adults: the moderating role of high-quality familial ties

Abstract

Objectives: The primary objective of this study is to investigate whether depression is associated with reduced participation in social activities among older adults. Additionally, this study assesses whether high-quality familial ties diminish the negative association between depression and social activities.

Methods: Using cross-sectional telephone interview data from a sample of individuals 60 years of age and older in Arizona and Florida (N = 2000), this study estimates a series of linear regression models to assess the relationship between depression and social activities, and test whether this association is conditioned by high-quality familial ties using multiplicative interaction terms.

Results: As expected, an inverse relationship between depression and social activities is observed. Delving deeper, the regression models reveal that the depression–inactivity association is weaker among older individuals with strong, positive ties to spouses and children. Additional tests demonstrate the mere of existence of familial bonds provides no meaningful benefit – the quality of such ties matters.

Conclusion: Findings support the theoretical argument that high-quality familial ties provide supportive coping resources that buffer individuals from the undesirable consequences associated with depression. Moving forward, longitudinal research on the causal links between depression and infrequent participation in social and leisure activities among older adults is warranted.

Keywords:

• older adults
• depression
• social activity
• familial ties

Acknowledgements

This research was supported in part by Award No. 2010-IJ-CX-008, awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Approximately, 1.11% (n = 422) of the 38,000 cells used in this study had missing values. Similar response pattern imputation (or ‘hot decking’) was used to handle missing cell values. This procedure provides sensible values without strong parametric assumptions (Andridge & Little, 2010), and has also been found to work well with survey data (Gmel, 2001). The imputation process was carried out using PRELIS 2.30 (Scientific Software International, Chicago, IL). Following imputation, around 0.42% (n = 162) cell values were missing.

2. The original social activity instrument consists of nine items, all of which feature dichotomous response sets. The three items used in this study are modified versions of original items. Ordinal response sets were used in place of binary coding to maximize variation in scores.

3. Promax rotation is used because the correlation coefficient between the two scales is 0.30 (p < 0.01). Principal axis is the factor model of choice because it better handles measurement error when compared to similar factor-analytic techniques. It should be noted that one of the GDS items (i.e., ‘I prefer to go home rather than going out and doing things’) fails to adequately load (less than |0.40|) on either of the two factors that are observed. Hence, this item is discarded and a 4-item GDS is used.

4. Breakdowns for participants falling into the ‘otherwise’ category (coded 0) for the two familial ties variables are as follows: attachment to spouse (25.5% married, 40.1% widowed, 26.3% divorced, 2.0% separated, and 6.2% never married) and attachment to children (68.1% have children and 31.9% do not have children). Grouping these disparate categories together in the reference category is appropriate given the hypothesis being advanced states that strong and supportive ties effectively moderate the negative impact of depression for those who possess them relative to persons who do not (for whatever reason).