生活事件与老年人抑郁倾向:累积效应、社会后果与影响机制

Life Events and Depression in the Elderly:Cumulative Effect,Social Consequence and Influence Mechanism

生活事件是一种重要的影响老年人心理健康的应激源,压力过程模型理论提供生活事件、抑郁倾向和个体社会经济地位之间可能存在的关系模式。本文利用中国老年社会追踪调查2014年和2016年数据实证分析60周岁以上老年人生活事件的发生时间和发生种类数对老年人抑郁倾向的短期累积效应,分析老年人社会经济地位、生活事件与抑郁倾向三者之间的关系,探讨生活事件影响老年人抑郁倾向的社会后果及机制。结果表明生活事件对老年人抑郁倾向的影响具有短期累积效应,主要体现在事件种类数的累积效应,但事件的时间累积效应不明显。对三者关系的检验结果发现生活事件种类数的累积在老年人社会经济地位和抑郁倾向的关系中起到显著的中介作用,社会经济地位在生活事件种类数和抑郁倾向间的调节效应不显著。生活事件对老年人抑郁倾向的累积影响表现在扩大了不同经济地位老年人心理健康差距的社会后果。研究认为老年人生活事件对抑郁倾向影响的累积效应是老年人心理健康不平等的一个形成路径。提高老年人心理健康水平的关键在于降低弱势老年人负性生活事件的暴露风险。

Life events are important sources of stress affecting the mental health of the elderly,and the stress process model theory provides the possible relationship between life events,depression tendency and individual social status.Using data from China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey in 2014 and 2016,this paper empirically analyzes the short-term cumulative effect of the occurrence time and type numbers of life events on depression tendency of the elderly over 60 years old,with analyzing the relationship among the socio-economic status,life events and depression tendency of the elderly,and discussing the social consequences and mechanism of life events affecting depression tendency of the elderly.The results show that life events have a short-term cumulative effect on depression tendency in the elderly,which are mainly reflected in the cumulative effect of the number of events,and the time cumulative effect of events is not obvious.The test result of the three relationships finds that the accumulation of life event type numbers plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between socioeconomic status and depression tendency of the elderly,while the moderating effect of socioeconomic status between life event types and depression tendency is not significant.The cumulative effect of life events on depression tendency of the elderly results in the social consequences of widening mental health gap among the elderly of different status.The cumulative effect of life events on depression tendency in the elderly is considered to be a pathway of mental health inequality in the elderly.The key to improve the mental health level of the elderly is to reduce the exposure risk of negative life events in the vulnerable elderly.