Taylor Harry O, Nguyen Ann W
Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina.
Jack Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
Innov Aging. 2020 Dec 16;4(5):igaa048. doi: 10.1093/geroni/igaa048. eCollection 2020.
Loneliness is consistently linked to worse depression/depressive symptoms; however, there are few studies that have examined whether the relationship between loneliness and depressive symptoms varies by race. The purpose of this study was to determine whether race moderated the relationship between loneliness and depressive symptoms.
Data come from the 2014 wave of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) Core survey and Psychosocial Leave-Behind Questionnaire; only black and white older adults were included in the analysis ( = 6,469). Depressive symptoms were operationalized by the eight-item Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale; however, the "felt lonely" item was removed given concerns with collinearity. Loneliness was operationalized using the Hughes 3-Item Loneliness Scale. Sociodemographic variables included gender, age, education, household income, employment status, marital status, and living alone or with others. Furthermore, social support and negative interactions from family members and friends, and religious service attendance were included in the analysis. Lastly, we created an interaction term between race and loneliness. All analyses used survey weights to account for the complex multistage sampling design of the HRS. Missing data were multiply imputed.
In multivariable analysis, we found race significantly moderated the relationship between loneliness and depressive symptoms while controlling for sociodemographic covariates, social support and negative interaction variables, and religious service attendance.
Our findings demonstrate a differential racial effect for loneliness and depressive symptoms. For both blacks and whites, greater loneliness affected depressive symptoms; however, the effect was stronger among whites than it was for blacks. Given this is one of the first studies to examine the differential effects of race on loneliness and depressive symptoms, more research is necessary to determine the consistency of these results.
孤独感一直与更严重的抑郁/抑郁症状相关；然而，很少有研究探讨孤独感与抑郁症状之间的关系是否因种族而异。本研究的目的是确定种族是否调节了孤独感与抑郁症状之间的关系。
数据来自2014年健康与退休研究（HRS）核心调查和心理社会遗留问卷；分析中仅纳入了黑人和白人老年人（n = 6469）。抑郁症状通过8项流行病学研究中心抑郁量表进行衡量；然而，由于担心共线性问题，“感到孤独”这一项被剔除。孤独感采用休斯3项孤独感量表进行衡量。社会人口学变量包括性别、年龄、教育程度、家庭收入、就业状况、婚姻状况以及是否独居。此外，分析中还纳入了来自家人和朋友的社会支持、负面互动以及宗教活动参与情况。最后，我们创建了种族与孤独感之间的交互项。所有分析均使用调查权重来考虑HRS复杂的多阶段抽样设计。缺失数据采用多重填补法。
在多变量分析中，我们发现种族在控制社会人口学协变量、社会支持和负面互动变量以及宗教活动参与情况后，显著调节了孤独感与抑郁症状之间的关系。
我们的研究结果表明孤独感和抑郁症状存在种族差异效应。对于黑人和白人来说，孤独感越强，抑郁症状越明显；然而，白人的这种效应比黑人更强。鉴于这是首批研究种族对孤独感和抑郁症状差异影响的研究之一，需要更多研究来确定这些结果的一致性。
