Department of Public Health Policy, National Institute of Public Health, Wako City, 351-0197, Japan.
Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata City, 951-8510, Japan.
BMC Geriatr. 2024 Feb 12;24(1):145. doi: 10.1186/s12877-024-04729-4.
Internet use has both positive and negative effects on mental health. However, few studies have examined the association between internet use and mental health among older adults in developing countries. This study aimed to investigate the association between Internet use and depressive symptoms among older adults in two regions of Myanmar.
Data based on a visit to 1,200 older adults in urban and rural Myanmar were obtained through stratified random sampling using the cross-sectional baseline survey of the longitudinal study titled "Healthy and Active Aging in Myanmar." Our analysis included 1,186 participants. The dependent variable was depressive symptoms, and the 15-item version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) was used as a continuous variable; the higher the score, the more likely a person was to be depressed. Internet use (one of the questions about household property ownership) was used as an independent variable. After confirming the absence of multicollinearity, we adjusted for age, gender, educational background, activities of daily living, residential area, and frequency of meeting friends, and stratified by subjective economic status (above or below average). We also examined the interaction between internet use and subjective economic status. A linear regression analysis was performed.
Among the 1,186 participants included in the analysis (women: 59.5%; median age: 68 years old), 202 (17.0%) were Internet users (95% Confidential Interval [CI]: 0.15, 0.19), and they had significantly lower GDS scores than the participants who did not use the Internet (B: -1.59, 95% CI: -2.04, -1.13).GDS showed a negative association with Internet use even in the multivariate analysis (B: -0.95, 95% CI: -1.41, -0.50). However, the interaction term for GDS between Internet use and subjective economic status was not significantly associated (B: 0.43, 95% CI: -1.11, 1.98).
Internet use and depressive symptoms were associated especially among the older adults. However, there were no significant interaction between Internet use and subjective economic status for GDS.
互联网的使用对心理健康既有积极影响，也有消极影响。然而，很少有研究调查互联网使用与发展中国家老年人心理健康之间的关系。本研究旨在调查缅甸两个地区老年人互联网使用与抑郁症状之间的关系。
数据来自于一项对缅甸城市和农村地区 1200 名老年人的访问，采用分层随机抽样方法，使用题为“缅甸健康和积极老龄化”的纵向研究的横断面基线调查获得。我们的分析包括 1186 名参与者。因变量为抑郁症状，使用老年抑郁量表（GDS）的 15 项版本作为连续变量；得分越高，抑郁的可能性越大。互联网使用（家庭财产所有权的一个问题）作为自变量。在确认不存在多重共线性后，我们根据年龄、性别、教育背景、日常生活活动、居住区域以及与朋友见面的频率进行了调整，并按主观经济状况（高于或低于平均水平）进行了分层。我们还检查了互联网使用与主观经济状况之间的交互作用。进行了线性回归分析。
在纳入分析的 1186 名参与者中（女性：59.5%；中位数年龄：68 岁），有 202 人（95%置信区间[CI]：0.15，0.19）是互联网使用者，他们的 GDS 得分明显低于未使用互联网的参与者（B：-1.59，95%CI：-2.04，-1.13）。即使在多变量分析中，GDS 也与互联网使用呈负相关（B：-0.95，95%CI：-1.41，-0.50）。然而，GDS 中互联网使用和主观经济状况之间的交互项与抑郁症状并无显著相关性（B：0.43，95%CI：-1.11，1.98）。
互联网使用与抑郁症状之间存在关联，特别是在老年人中。然而，对于 GDS，互联网使用和主观经济状况之间没有显著的交互作用。
