Giving Support and Suicidal Ideation in Older Adults with Vision-Related Diagnoses

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Visual impairment in older adults may increase risk for depression and suicide. Research suggests that giving support to others may be associated with lower depressive symptoms in older adults, but much of the research has been in non-clinical populations. Furthermore, there is limited research on giving support and suicide risk.

Methods: Using a sample of older adults with vision-related diagnoses (N = 101), this study investigated the association between informal support giving (unpaid support given to family, friends, or neighbors) and formal support giving (volunteering) on depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation. Linear regressions examined the relation between support giving and depression, and logistic regressions examined the relation between support giving and suicidal ideation.

Results: Greater informal support giving was related to lower likelihood of reported suicidal ideation (OR: .82, 95% CI: .68-.99, p = .04), whereas volunteer activity was not significantly related to suicidal ideation. Neither volunteer behavior nor informal support giving was related to depressive symptoms.

Conclusions: Providing informal support was associated with lower likelihood of endorsing suicidal ideation in older adults with vision impairment.

Clinical Implications: Informal support giving may be a target for decreasing suicidal ideation among older adults with health impairments.

KEYWORDS:

• Depression
• suicide
• older adult
• support
• volunteer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.