Article type
Abstract
"Background: Report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposes the implementation of a national strategy to actively cope with the ageing of the population. Research on the impact of Internet use on the mental health of the elderly can promote active ageing and advance the construction of a healthy China.
Objective: To understand the current status of Internet use among Chinese older people and its impact on depressive symptoms, in order to provide a reference basis for improving the mental health of older people and reducing the probability of depression.
Methods: We used data from the 2020 China Family Tracking Survey (CFPS) on 4568 older adults ≥60 years of age to measure depressive symptoms using the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), to explore the current status of Internet use among older adults in China using correlation analyses, and to discuss the effects of Internet use on depressive symptoms using multifactorial unconditional logistic regression analyses.
Results: Among 4568 older adults ≥60 years of age, 1045 used the Internet, a 22.88% Internet use rate; 366 were positive for depressive symptoms, a detection rate of 8.01%. After controlling for confounding factors such as age, gender, marital status, education level, whether they received pension insurance, self-assessed health status, whether they had chronic diseases, relationship with their children, and whether they participated in physical exercise, the results of multifactorial unconditional logistic regression analyses showed that the risk of positive depressive symptoms among Chinese older adults who used the Internet was 0.405 times higher than that of those who did not use the Internet (OR = 0.405, 95 % CI = 0.04-0.77).
Conclusion: Internet use is low among Chinese older adults, and use of the Internet can help reduce the risk of depression prevalence among older adults.
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Objective: To understand the current status of Internet use among Chinese older people and its impact on depressive symptoms, in order to provide a reference basis for improving the mental health of older people and reducing the probability of depression.
Methods: We used data from the 2020 China Family Tracking Survey (CFPS) on 4568 older adults ≥60 years of age to measure depressive symptoms using the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), to explore the current status of Internet use among older adults in China using correlation analyses, and to discuss the effects of Internet use on depressive symptoms using multifactorial unconditional logistic regression analyses.
Results: Among 4568 older adults ≥60 years of age, 1045 used the Internet, a 22.88% Internet use rate; 366 were positive for depressive symptoms, a detection rate of 8.01%. After controlling for confounding factors such as age, gender, marital status, education level, whether they received pension insurance, self-assessed health status, whether they had chronic diseases, relationship with their children, and whether they participated in physical exercise, the results of multifactorial unconditional logistic regression analyses showed that the risk of positive depressive symptoms among Chinese older adults who used the Internet was 0.405 times higher than that of those who did not use the Internet (OR = 0.405, 95 % CI = 0.04-0.77).
Conclusion: Internet use is low among Chinese older adults, and use of the Internet can help reduce the risk of depression prevalence among older adults.
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