Institute of Hospital Management, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China.
Department of Health Services Administration, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
BMC Geriatr. 2022 Apr 22;22(1):351. doi: 10.1186/s12877-022-03054-y.
We aimed to assess the characteristics and health status of a study sample using social media WeChat and to identify the association between social media usage and depressive symptoms among people aged 45 and older in China.
Data were drawn from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Depressive symptoms were measured by the 10-item form of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D-10). The propensity score matching method (PSM) was performed to balance the characteristics of WeChat users and non-WeChat users. Multilevel logistic regression was used to test the association between the incidence of depressive symptoms and WeChat usage by introducing covariates step by step. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to estimate the robustness of the primary findings.
A total of 5415 matching cases out of 11,338 total sample were used in this study to generate the final analysis. A multilevel logistic regression model showed that a significantly lower incidence of depression was related to WeChat usage after adjusting for all possible covariates (OR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.62-0.94). The most popular WeChat functions used by the study population were watching news (80.4%), posting Moment messages (75.5%), chatting with friends (66.0%), and watching videos (65.2%). The sensitivity analysis yielded similar findings to the primary analyses.
Using social media WeChat showed an association with lower depressive symptoms among people aged ≥45 and older in our study sample. Further studies need to be explored on the promotion and education of social media WeChat usage, targeting the improvement of mental health-related issues through social network connections.
本研究旨在评估使用社交媒体微信的研究样本的特征和健康状况，并确定社交媒体使用与中国 45 岁及以上人群抑郁症状之间的关联。
数据来自中国健康与养老追踪调查（CHARLS）。抑郁症状采用流行病学研究中心抑郁量表（CES-D-10）的 10 项自评量表进行评估。采用倾向评分匹配法（PSM）平衡微信用户和非微信用户的特征。通过逐步引入协变量，采用多水平逻辑回归检验抑郁症状的发生率与微信使用之间的关联。进行敏感性分析以估计主要发现的稳健性。
在总共 11338 个样本中，共有 5415 个匹配病例用于本研究，最终得出分析结果。多水平逻辑回归模型表明，在调整所有可能的协变量后，微信使用与抑郁发生率显著降低相关（OR：0.76，95%CI：0.62-0.94）。研究人群最常使用的微信功能包括看新闻（80.4%）、发朋友圈消息（75.5%）、与朋友聊天（66.0%）和看视频（65.2%）。敏感性分析得出的结果与主要分析相似。
在本研究样本中，使用社交媒体微信与 45 岁及以上人群的抑郁症状发生率降低有关。需要进一步研究通过社交媒体微信的推广和教育，针对通过社交网络联系改善心理健康问题。
