O'Hare Celia, O'Sullivan Vincent, Flood Stephen, Kenny Rose Anne
The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
Lancaster University Management School, LA1 4YX, United Kingdom.
J Affect Disord. 2016 Feb;191:172-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2015.11.029. Epub 2015 Dec 1.
Given increased social and physiological vulnerabilities, older adults may be particularly susceptible to environmental influences on mood. Whereas the impact of season on mood is well described for adults, studies rarely extend to elders or include objective weather data. We investigated the impact of seasonality and meteorological factors on risk of current depressive symptoms in older adults.
We used data on 8027 participants from the first wave of The Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a population-representative cohort of adults aged 50+. Depressive symptoms were recorded using the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Season was defined according to the World Meteorological Organisation. Data on climate over the preceding thirty years, and temperature and rain over the preceding month, were provided by the Irish Meteorological Service and linked using Geographic Information Systems techniques to participant's geo-coded locations at a resolution of one kilometre.
The highest levels of depressive symptoms were reported in winter and the lowest in spring (mean 6.56 [CI95% 6.09, 7.04] vs. 5.81 [CI95%: 5.40, 6.22]). In fully adjusted linear regression models, participants living in areas with higher levels of rainfall in the preceding and/or current calendar month had greater depressive symptoms (0.04 SE 0.02; p=0.039 per 10mm additional rainfall per month) while those living in areas with sunnier climates had fewer depressive symptoms (-2.67 SE 0.88; p=0.003 for every additional hour of average annual daily sunshine).
This was a cross-sectional analysis thus causality cannot be inferred; monthly rain and temperature averages were available only on a calendar month basis while monthly local levels of sunshine data were not available.
Environmental cues may influence mood in older adults and thus have relevance for the recognition and treatment of depression in this age group.
鉴于老年人在社会和生理方面的脆弱性增加，他们可能特别容易受到环境对情绪的影响。虽然季节对成年人情绪的影响已有充分描述，但相关研究很少涉及老年人，或未纳入客观天气数据。我们调查了季节性和气象因素对老年人当前抑郁症状风险的影响。
我们使用了来自爱尔兰老龄化纵向研究第一波的8027名参与者的数据，该研究是一个具有人口代表性的50岁以上成年人队列。使用流行病学研究中心抑郁量表记录抑郁症状。季节根据世界气象组织进行定义。爱尔兰气象服务局提供了过去三十年的气候数据以及前一个月的温度和降雨数据，并使用地理信息系统技术将这些数据与参与者以一公里分辨率进行地理编码的位置相链接。
抑郁症状水平在冬季最高，春季最低（平均值分别为6.56 [95%置信区间6.09, 7.04] 和5.81 [95%置信区间：5.40, 6.22]）。在完全调整的线性回归模型中，在前一个和/或当前日历月降雨量较高地区生活的参与者有更严重的抑郁症状（每增加10毫米降雨量，标准误为0.04，p = 0.039），而生活在气候更阳光充足地区的参与者抑郁症状较少（平均每年每日日照每增加一小时，标准误为 -2.67，p = 0.003）。
这是一项横断面分析，因此无法推断因果关系；每月降雨和温度平均值仅按日历月提供，而每月当地日照水平数据不可用。
环境线索可能会影响老年人的情绪，因此对于该年龄组抑郁症的识别和治疗具有重要意义。
