IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/eujoag/v19y2022i4d10.1007_s10433-022-00732-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Age-period-cohort analysis of depression trends: are depressive symptoms increasing across generations in Germany?

Author

Listed:
  • Johannes Beller

    (Hannover Medical School, Center for Public Health and Health Care, Medical Sociology Unit)

Abstract

Several studies have examined trends in depression, but only few have explicitly considered possible generational differences. I examined changes in the burden of depressive symptoms between 2002 and 2017 according to age, time period and birth cohort in Germany. I used population-based data drawn from the German Aging Survey (N = 33,723, 54% female, ages 40 +) from 2002, 2008, 2011, 2014, and 2017. Depressive symptoms were measured via the CES-D 15. Hierarchical age-period-cohort models were used to examine trends in depression. I found that depressive symptoms changed across age, time period and birth cohorts. While there was a general decrease across time periods, strong evidence for a U-shaped cohort effect was also found: Younger generations, beginning with cohorts born after the World War II, increasingly report more depressive symptoms than older generations. This U-shaped cohort trend appeared most pronounced for the somatic symptoms subscale. Contrarily, only minimal cohort differences were found regarding the positive affect subscale. Therefore, depressive symptoms, and especially somatic symptoms, seem to increase in more recent birth cohorts in Germany, who might thus be at risk to experience more mental health problems in the future. Potential reasons for these trends and the generalizability of the results to other countries should be investigated by future studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Johannes Beller, 2022. "Age-period-cohort analysis of depression trends: are depressive symptoms increasing across generations in Germany?," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 1493-1505, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eujoag:v:19:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s10433-022-00732-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s10433-022-00732-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10433-022-00732-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10433-022-00732-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reither, Eric N. & Masters, Ryan K. & Yang, Yang Claire & Powers, Daniel A. & Zheng, Hui & Land, Kenneth C., 2015. "Should age-period-cohort studies return to the methodologies of the 1970s?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 356-365.
    2. Gemma Vilagut & Carlos G Forero & Gabriela Barbaglia & Jordi Alonso, 2016. "Screening for Depression in the General Population with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D): A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(5), pages 1-17, May.
    3. Jahanvash Karim & Robert Weisz & Zainab Bibi & Shafiq Ur Rehman, 2015. "Validation of the Eight-Item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) Among Older Adults," Post-Print hal-01796436, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bell, Andrew & Evans, Clare & Holman, Daniel & Leckie, George, 2023. "Extending intersectional Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) for longitudinal data, with application to mental health trajectories in the UK," SocArXiv jq57s, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Byung-Sun Park & Keungeun Lee & Changhwan Shin & Kwonho Choi & Sung-Woo Bae, 2022. "Longitudinal Measurement Invariance of the Korean Version of the CES-D-11 Scale," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, August.
    2. Johanna W de Joode & Susan EM van Dijk & Florine S Walburg & Judith E Bosmans & Harm WJ van Marwijk & Michiel R de Boer & Maurits W van Tulder & Marcel C Adriaanse, 2019. "Diagnostic accuracy of depression questionnaires in adult patients with diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(6), pages 1-16, June.
    3. Ryan K. Masters & Daniel A. Powers & Robert A. Hummer & Audrey Beck & Shih-Fan Lin & Brian Karl Finch, 2016. "Fitting Age-Period-Cohort Models Using the Intrinsic Estimator: Assumptions and Misapplications," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(4), pages 1253-1259, August.
    4. Jorge Arias-de la Torre & Gemma Vilagut & Antoni Serrano-Blanco & Vicente Martín & Antonio José Molina & Jose M Valderas & Jordi Alonso, 2020. "Accuracy of Self-Reported Items for the Screening of Depression in the General Population," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-10, October.
    5. Jia-In Lee & Yu-Ping Chang & Ching-Shu Tsai & Cheng-Fang Yen, 2022. "Internalized Sexual Stigma among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Individuals in Taiwan: Its Related Factors and Association with Mental Health Problems," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-13, February.
    6. Bancalari, Antonella & Berlinski, Samuel & Buitrago, Giancarlo & García, María Fernanda & Mata, Dolores de la & Vera-Hernández, Marcos, 2023. "Health Inequalities in Latin American and the Caribbean: Child, Adolescent, Reproductive, Metabolic Syndrome and Mental Health," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13158, Inter-American Development Bank.
    7. Shimizutani, Satoshi & Yamada, Hiroyuki, 2021. "Long-term consequences of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    8. Conal Twomey & Gary O’Reilly, 2018. "The association of ‘self-monitoring’ with depression in help-seeking Facebook users," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 64(5), pages 482-487, August.
    9. Kelcie D. Willis & Tamara Nelson & Oswaldo Moreno, 2019. "Death Anxiety, Religious Doubt, and Depressive Symptoms across Race in Older Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-14, September.
    10. Giulietti, Corrado & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Zenou, Yves, 2022. "Peers, gender, and long-term depression," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    11. Robert Bozick, 2021. "Age, period, and cohort effects contributing to the Great American Migration Slowdown," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 45(42), pages 1269-1296.
    12. Ruiz-Tagle, Jaime & Urria, Ignacio, 2022. "Household overcrowding trajectories and mental well-being," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    13. Ryan Masters & Daniel Powers, 2020. "Clarifying assumptions in age-period-cohort analyses and validating results," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-21, October.
    14. Jean M. Twenge & Ryne A. Sherman & Julie J. Exline & Joshua B. Grubbs, 2016. "Declines in American Adults’ Religious Participation and Beliefs, 1972-2014," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(1), pages 21582440166, March.
    15. Gustavo De Santis & Massimo Mucciardi, 2017. "From Euclidean distances to APC models," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 829-846, March.
    16. Redding, Stuart & Nicodemo, Catia & Wittenberg, Raphael, 2021. "Analysis of trends in emergency and elective hospital admissions and hospital bed days 1997 to 2015," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    17. Eileen Heumann & Jannis Trümmler & Christiane Stock & Stefanie M. Helmer & Heide Busse & Sarah Negash & Claudia R. Pischke, 2023. "Study Conditions and University Students’ Mental Health during the Pandemic: Results of the COVID-19 German Student Well-Being Study (C19 GSWS)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(7), pages 1-15, March.
    18. Benjamin Kaveladze & Allison Diamond Altman & Meike Niederhausen & Jennifer M Loftis & Alan R Teo, 2022. "Social relationship quality, depression and inflammation: A cross-cultural longitudinal study in the United States and Tokyo, Japan," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 68(2), pages 253-263, March.
    19. Luana Caroline de Assunção Cortez Corrêa & Cristiano dos Santos Gomes & Saionara Maria Aires da Camara & Juliana Fernandes de Souza Barbosa & Ingrid Guerra Azevedo & Afshin Vafaei & Ricardo Oliveira G, 2023. "Gender-Specific Associations between Late-Life Disability and Socioeconomic Status: Findings from the International Mobility and Aging Study (IMIAS)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-11, February.
    20. Angel Nga Man Leung & Wilbert Law & Yvonne Yiqing Liang & Antony Chun Lam Au & Cheng Li & Henry Kin Shing Ng, 2021. "What Explains the Association between Usage of Social Networking Sites (SNS) and Depression Symptoms? The Mediating Roles of Self-Esteem and Fear of Missing Out," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(8), pages 1-11, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:eujoag:v:19:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s10433-022-00732-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.