IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v60y2005i1p13-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Chronic illness and depressive symptoms in late life

Author

Listed:
  • Schnittker, Jason

Abstract

The relationship between illness and depressive symptoms is examined using a large, nationally representative, and longitudinal sample of Americans over the age of 50. Seven illnesses (cancer, stroke, heart condition, chronic obstructed pulmonary disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and arthritis) and three forms of disability (activities in daily living, mobility, and strength) substantially increase symptoms. Yet, most of these positive effects diminish with age. Multiplicative interactions between age and illness indicate that those who develop chronic illnesses earlier in life tend to report more depressive symptoms than do those who develop them later. Similarly, disability leads to more depressive symptoms when experienced at younger ages. This age-graded effect emerges even for illnesses that are known to share a biological substrate with depression (e.g. vascular disorders). The results are discussed with respect to theories of illness, depression, and aging.

Suggested Citation

  • Schnittker, Jason, 2005. "Chronic illness and depressive symptoms in late life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 13-23, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:60:y:2005:i:1:p:13-23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(04)00200-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Verbrugge, Lois M. & Jette, Alan M., 1994. "The disablement process," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 1-14, January.
    2. Christopher Winship & Larry Radbill, 1994. "Sampling Weights and Regression Analysis," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 23(2), pages 230-257, November.
    3. Eileen Crimmins & Mark Hayward & Yasuhiko Saito, 1994. "Changing mortality and morbidity rates and the health status and life expectancy of the older population," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 31(1), pages 159-175, February.
    4. Robert B. Wallace & A. Regula Herzog, 1995. "Overview of the Health Measures in the Health and Retirement Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30, pages 84-107.
    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. Siqin Wang & Yan Liu & Jack Lam & Zhe Gao, 2021. "Chronic Illness, Subjective Wellbeing, and Health Services Availability: A Study of Older Adults in Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-15, July.
    2. West, Jessica S., 2017. "Hearing impairment, social support, and depressive symptoms among U.S. adults: A test of the stress process paradigm," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 94-101.
    3. Kiviruusu, Olli & Huurre, Taina & Aro, Hillevi, 2007. "Psychosocial resources and depression among chronically ill young adults: Are males more vulnerable?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 173-186, July.
    4. Huanhuan Zhu & Lin Pan & Yiji Li & Huiming Jin & Qian Wang & Xin Liu & Cong Wang & Peng Liao & Xinyang Jiang & Luo Li, 2021. "Spatial Accessibility Assessment of Prehospital EMS with a Focus on the Elderly Population: A Case Study in Ningbo, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-17, September.

    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. James N. Laditka & Douglas A. Wolf, 2004. "Duration Data from the National Long-Term Care Survey: Foundation for a Dynamic Multiple-Indicator Model of ADL Dependency," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 65, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    2. Mark Hayward & Robert Hummer & Chi-Tsun Chiu & César González-González & Rebeca Wong, 2014. "Does the Hispanic Paradox in U.S. Adult Mortality Extend to Disability?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(1), pages 81-96, February.
    3. Michal Engelman & Heide Jackson, 2019. "Gradual Change, Homeostasis, and Punctuated Equilibrium: Reconsidering Patterns of Health in Later Life," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(6), pages 2323-2347, December.
    4. Danan Gu & Yi Zeng, 2004. "Sociodemographic Effects on the Onset and Recovery of ADL Disability among Chinese Oldest-old," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 11(1), pages 1-42.
    5. Jennifer Montez & Mark Hayward, 2014. "Cumulative Childhood Adversity, Educational Attainment, and Active Life Expectancy Among U.S. Adults," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(2), pages 413-435, April.
    6. Eileen Crimmins & Yasuhiko Saito, 2000. "Change in the Prevalence of Diseases Among Older Americans: 1984-1994," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 3(9).
    7. van Zon, Sander K.R. & Bültmann, Ute & Reijneveld, Sijmen A. & de Leon, Carlos F. Mendes, 2016. "Functional health decline before and after retirement: A longitudinal analysis of the Health and Retirement Study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 26-34.
    8. Ruth Hancock & Marcello Morciano & Stephen Pudney & Francesca Zantomio, 2015. "Do household surveys give a coherent view of disability benefit targeting?: a multisurvey latent variable analysis for the older population in Great Britain," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 178(4), pages 815-836, October.
    9. Theresa Wimberley & Erik Parner & Henrik Støvring, 2013. "Stata as a numerical tool for scientific thought experiments: A tutorial with worked examples," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 13(1), pages 3-20, March.
    10. Badley, Elizabeth M., 2008. "Enhancing the conceptual clarity of the activity and participation components of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(11), pages 2335-2345, June.
    11. Newton, Nicky J. & Ryan, Lindsay H. & King, Rachel T. & Smith, Jacqui, 2014. "Cohort differences in the marriage–health relationship for midlife women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 64-72.
    12. Marc Luy, 2020. "Understanding the Cross-Sectional Association Between Life Expectancy and Healthy Life Years: The CroHaM Hypothesis," VID Working Papers 2003, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
    13. Plaisier, Inger & Verbeek-Oudijk, Debbie & de Klerk, Mirjam, 2017. "Developments in home-care use. Policy and changing community-based care use by independent community-dwelling adults in the Netherlands," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 82-89.
    14. Blind, Knut & Petersen, Sören S. & Riillo, Cesare A.F., 2017. "The impact of standards and regulation on innovation in uncertain markets," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 249-264.
    15. Lee, Christopher Thomas & Guzman, David & Ponath, Claudia & Tieu, Lina & Riley, Elise & Kushel, Margot, 2016. "Residential patterns in older homeless adults: Results of a cluster analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 131-140.
    16. Oberfichtner Michael & Schnabel Claus, 2019. "The German Model of Industrial Relations: (Where) Does It Still Exist?," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 239(1), pages 5-37, January.
    17. de Grip, A. & Dupuy, A. & Jolles, J. & van Boxtel, M.P., 2012. "Retirement and cognitive development: are the retired really inactive?," Research Memorandum 009, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).
    18. Levasseur, Mélanie & Richard, Lucie & Gauvin, Lise & Raymond, Émilie, 2010. "Inventory and analysis of definitions of social participation found in the aging literature: Proposed taxonomy of social activities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(12), pages 2141-2149, December.
    19. Williams, Colin C. & Horodnic, Adrian V., 2017. "Rethinking informal payments by patients in Europe: An institutional approach," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(10), pages 1053-1062.
    20. Brenzel, Hanna & Gartner, Hermann & Schnabel, Claus, 2014. "Wage bargaining or wage posting? Evidence from the employers' side," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 41-48.

    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:eee:socmed:v:60:y:2005:i:1:p:13-23. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    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.