Health-Promoting Lifestyles and Depression in Urban Elderly Chinese

OBJECTIVE: To explore health-promoting lifestyles, depression and provide further insight into the relationship between health-promoting lifestyles and depression in an urban community sample of elderly Chinese people. METHODS: A cross-sectional descriptive and correlational study of 954 community-dwelling urban elderly Chinese (aged ≥ 60) was conducted from July to December 2010. Lifestyles and depression were assessed using the revised Chinese Version of the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLP-C) and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), respectively. RESULTS: In this cohort, 15.8% of elderly urban adults met the criteria for depression. Over half of the sample (62.1%) scored greater than 100 on the HPLP-C, with range of score sum from 55 to 160. There were significant correlations between self-actualization (OR = 1.167, 95%CI: 1.111–1.226), nutrition (OR = 1.118, 95%CI: 1.033–1.209), physical activity (OR = 1.111, 95%CI: 1.015–1.216) and depression among community-dwelling elderly Chinese. LIMITATIONS: This was a cross-sectional study. The significant associations found do not represent directional causation. Further longitudinal follow-up is recommended to investigate the specific causal relationship between lifestyles and depression. CONCLUSIONS: Depression was common with medium to high levels of health-promoting lifestyles among urban elderly Chinese people. Lifestyle behaviors such as self-actualization, good nutrition habits and frequent physical activity were correlated to fewer depressive symptoms. Healthy lifestyles should be further developed in this population and measures should be taken for improving their depression.