Centre for Policy on Ageing



On becoming depressed or anxious in late life — similar vulnerability factors but different effects of stressful life events
Author(s)	Edwin de Beurs, Aartjan Beekman, Sandra Geerlings
Journal title	British Journal of Psychiatry, vol 179, November 2001
Pages	pp 426-431
Keywords	Depression ; Anxiety ; At risk ; Stress ; Living in the community ; Longitudinal surveys ; Netherlands.
Annotation	To investigate risk profiles for developing depression and anxiety, the authors used self-report data from 1810 emotionally healthy community-dwelling over 55s from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) collected on two occasions, 3 years apart. After 3 years, 9% of subjects had scored beyond the thresholds for symptoms. Vulnerability for anxiety and depression were quite similar, but life events differed: whereas onset of depression was predicted by the death of a partner or other relatives, onset of anxiety was best predicted by having a partner who developed a major illness. No support for moderator effects between vulnerability factors and stress were found: the effects were purely additive. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-011205204 A
Classmark	ENR: ENP: CA3: QNH: K4: 3J: 76H
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.