BACKGROUND

We aimed to explore the association of sleep duration with depressive symptoms among rural-dwelling older adults in China, and to estimate the impact of substituting sleep with sedentary behavior (SB) and physical activity (PA) on the association with depressive symptoms.

METHODS

This population-based cross-sectional study included 2001 rural-dwelling older adults (age ≥ 60 years, 59.2% female). Sleep duration was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. We used accelerometers to assess SB and PA, and the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale to assess depressive symptoms. Data were analyzed using restricted cubic splines, compositional logistic regression, and isotemporal substitution models.

RESULTS

Restricted cubic spline curves showed a U-shaped association between daily sleep duration and the likelihood of depressive symptoms (P-nonlinear < 0.001). Among older adults with sleep duration < 7 h/day, reallocating 60 min/day spent on SB and PA to sleep were associated with multivariable-adjusted odds ratio (OR) of 0.81 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.78-0.84) and 0.79 (0.76-0.82), respectively, for depressive symptoms. Among older adults with sleep duration ≥ 7 h/day, reallocating 60 min/day spent in sleep to SB and PA, and reallocating 60 min/day spent on SB to PA were associated with multivariable-adjusted OR of 0.78 (0.74-0.84), 0.73 (0.69-0.78), and 0.94 (0.92-0.96), respectively, for depressive symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study reveals a U-shaped association of sleep duration with depressive symptoms in rural older adults and further shows that replacing SB and PA with sleep or vice versa is associated with reduced likelihoods of depressive symptoms depending on sleep duration.