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Educational attainment inequalities in depressive symptoms in more than 100,000 individuals in Europe

BACKGROUND: Increasing educational attainment (EA) could decrease the occurrence of depression. We investigated the relationship between EA and depressive symptoms in older individuals across four European regions. METHODS: We studied 108,315 Europeans (54% women, median age 63 years old) from the S...

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Autores principales: Chlapecka, Adam, Kagstrom, Anna, Cermakova, Pavla
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cambridge University Press 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7737177/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33190666
http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2020.100
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author Chlapecka, Adam
Kagstrom, Anna
Cermakova, Pavla
author_facet Chlapecka, Adam
Kagstrom, Anna
Cermakova, Pavla
author_sort Chlapecka, Adam
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Increasing educational attainment (EA) could decrease the occurrence of depression. We investigated the relationship between EA and depressive symptoms in older individuals across four European regions. METHODS: We studied 108,315 Europeans (54% women, median age 63 years old) from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe assessing EA (seven educational levels based on International Standard Classification of Education [ISCED] classification) and depressive symptoms (≥4 points on EURO-D scale). Logistic regression estimated the association between EA and depressive symptoms, adjusting for sociodemographic and health-related factors, testing for sex/age/region and education interactions. RESULTS: Higher EA was associated with lower odds of depressive symptoms, independent of sociodemographic and health-related factors. A threshold of the lowest odds of depressive symptoms was detected at the first stage of tertiary education (OR 0.60; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.55–0.65; p < 0.001; relative to no education). Central and Eastern Europe showed the strongest association (OR for high vs. low education 0.37; 95% CI 0.33–0.40; p < 0.001) and Scandinavia the weakest (OR for high vs. low education 0.69; 95% CI 0.60–0.80; p < 0.001). The association was strongest among younger individuals. There was a sex and education interaction only within Central and Eastern Europe. CONCLUSIONS: Level of EA is reflected in later-life depressive symptoms, suggesting that supporting individuals in achieving EA, and considering those with lower EA at increased risk for depression, could lead to decreased burden of depression across the life course. Further educational support in Central and Eastern Europe may decrease the higher burden of depressive symptoms in women.
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spelling pubmed-77371772020-12-21 Educational attainment inequalities in depressive symptoms in more than 100,000 individuals in Europe Chlapecka, Adam Kagstrom, Anna Cermakova, Pavla Eur Psychiatry Research Article BACKGROUND: Increasing educational attainment (EA) could decrease the occurrence of depression. We investigated the relationship between EA and depressive symptoms in older individuals across four European regions. METHODS: We studied 108,315 Europeans (54% women, median age 63 years old) from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe assessing EA (seven educational levels based on International Standard Classification of Education [ISCED] classification) and depressive symptoms (≥4 points on EURO-D scale). Logistic regression estimated the association between EA and depressive symptoms, adjusting for sociodemographic and health-related factors, testing for sex/age/region and education interactions. RESULTS: Higher EA was associated with lower odds of depressive symptoms, independent of sociodemographic and health-related factors. A threshold of the lowest odds of depressive symptoms was detected at the first stage of tertiary education (OR 0.60; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.55–0.65; p < 0.001; relative to no education). Central and Eastern Europe showed the strongest association (OR for high vs. low education 0.37; 95% CI 0.33–0.40; p < 0.001) and Scandinavia the weakest (OR for high vs. low education 0.69; 95% CI 0.60–0.80; p < 0.001). The association was strongest among younger individuals. There was a sex and education interaction only within Central and Eastern Europe. CONCLUSIONS: Level of EA is reflected in later-life depressive symptoms, suggesting that supporting individuals in achieving EA, and considering those with lower EA at increased risk for depression, could lead to decreased burden of depression across the life course. Further educational support in Central and Eastern Europe may decrease the higher burden of depressive symptoms in women. Cambridge University Press 2020-11-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7737177/ /pubmed/33190666 http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2020.100 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Chlapecka, Adam
Kagstrom, Anna
Cermakova, Pavla
Educational attainment inequalities in depressive symptoms in more than 100,000 individuals in Europe
title Educational attainment inequalities in depressive symptoms in more than 100,000 individuals in Europe
title_full Educational attainment inequalities in depressive symptoms in more than 100,000 individuals in Europe
title_fullStr Educational attainment inequalities in depressive symptoms in more than 100,000 individuals in Europe
title_full_unstemmed Educational attainment inequalities in depressive symptoms in more than 100,000 individuals in Europe
title_short Educational attainment inequalities in depressive symptoms in more than 100,000 individuals in Europe
title_sort educational attainment inequalities in depressive symptoms in more than 100,000 individuals in europe
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7737177/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33190666
http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2020.100
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