Depression and social support between China' rural and urban empty-nest elderly

This study compared levels of depression and social support among empty-nest elderly who living in the rural and urban area of Hunan province, China. This cross-sectional study enrolled 809 empty-nest elderly living throughout the province as the study respondents. The general information, depression conditions and social supports were investigated by using the self-made General Information Questionnaire, Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS). Variables are presented as mean +/- standard deviation (SD) or frequency. Independent t-test and chi(2)-tests were used to compare the socio-demographic factors, depression score and social support scores of the rural empty-nest elderly to the urban empty-nest ones; multilevel modeling was used to analyze the socio-demographic factors and social support predicted the level of depression among the empty-nest old subjects. The differences in gender, education level, marital status, economic status, self-perceived income, insurance, children visit frequency and religious beliefs factors between rural and urban empty-nester old people were statistically significant (p < 0.05). The average GDS score of rural group was (14.57 +/- 5.43), which was higher than the average GDS score (13.18 +/- 6.51) of urban group (p < 0.01). Objective support scores showed statistical significance between the rural and urban empty-nest elderly (p < 0.05). There are differences between rural and urban empty-nest elderly in the aspects of general data, depression status, social support and so on, we should intervene them effectively according to their different characteristics. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.