scholarly journals Identifying the Factors That Affect Depressive Symptoms in Middle-Aged Menopausal Women: A Nationwide Study in Korea

Author(s):  
Kisook Kim

Depressive symptoms do not persistently negatively affect functioning throughout the life span, but they may affect quality of life (QOL), especially in middle-aged women. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the factors associated with depressive symptoms in premenopausal and postmenopausal women. This descriptive study was a secondary analysis of the data from the seventh Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey that was conducted in 2016. Of the 8150 participants, the analysis included 644 premenopausal women and 459 postmenopausal women aged 40–60 years. The factors associated with depressive symptoms in the participants were examined using multivariate regression analysis. It was found that the depressive symptoms of postmenopausal middle-aged women were greater than those of premenopausal women. While a high perceived stress status and high pain-related discomfort were factors that influenced depressive symptoms among the premenopausal group, a high level of discomfort due to anxiety/depression, a poor perceived health status, shortened weekend sleep time, and smoking were associated with depressive symptoms in the postmenopausal group. Thus, it is necessary to develop an intervention to decrease depressive symptoms in postmenopausal women that considers their QOL, which is associated with depression, their subjective health status, sleep time, and smoking cessation.

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. e2019019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongho Jee ◽  
Youngtae Cho

OBJECTIVES: Previous studies have shown that marital status is associated with household composition and living arrangements, which partially explain observed differences in health status according to marital status. However, due to the rapid socioeconomic and demographic transformations of the last few decades, the distribution of marital status among middle-aged adults has become more diverse. Therefore, this study aimed to obtain up-to-date information on the associations between marital status and health and to investigate the implications of these findings for conventional explanations of the health effects of marriage.METHODS: The data for this study were obtained from the 2015 Korean Community Health Study. We compared 4 modifiable lifestyle behaviors—smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and self-rated health status—as outcome variables in association with marital status in Korean middle-aged men (age 40-44) living in Seoul and other regions.RESULTS: Married men showed the lowest cigarette smoking prevalence and the highest subjective health status both before and after adjusting for education and income. The odds of engaging in vigorous physical activity did not show a major difference before and after adjustment for income and education.CONCLUSIONS: In married men, the prevalence of cigarette smoking was lowest and subjective health status was highest, similar to previous studies. However, the prevalence of engaging in physical activity was highest in divorced/widowed/separated men. The health behaviors and health status of Korean middle-aged adults should be more closely followed, since they are representative of demographic changes in the Korean population.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 940-940
Author(s):  
Hyeyeon Sung ◽  
Jihun Na ◽  
Sungkyu Lee ◽  
Sehyun Baek

Abstract This study examined the factors associated with suicidal ideation among older individuals and compared those factors by their objective and subjective health status. Data were obtained from the 13th wave of the Korean Health Panel Survey in 2018. The sample of 6,283 older individuals, who are 55 years and older, was classified into four groups by their objective and subjective health status. Objective health status was measured by the number of chronic health conditions, and subjective health status was defined by an individual’s self-reported health status. To examine the factors associated with suicidal ideation among four groups of older individuals, logistic regression analyses were conducted after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, physical health and mental health characteristics. The results show that depression and anxiety were found as common factors associated with suicidal ideation for all four groups. As for the group of older individuals who reported bad objective health and bad subjective health, younger age, being male, and low educational attainment were found to be associated suicidal ideation. For those with bad objective health regardless of their subjective health status, the level of stress was found to be related to suicidal ideation among older individuals. Based upon those results, the present study discussed practical and policy implications for suicide prevention among older individuals by reflecting their objective health and subjective health status.


Author(s):  
Myoungjin Kwon ◽  
Sun Ae Kim ◽  
Wi-Young So.

Purpose: This study aimed to determine whether there are differences in the factors affecting the quality of life (QOL) of elderly women in South Korea according to their perceived economic status. Methods: Data were extracted from the Seventh Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted in 2016. The participants were 879 women over the age of 65 years, who were divided into three groups: high, medium, and low based on their perceived economic status. The study variables were classified into three categories: general characteristics, physical factors, and psychological factors. General characteristics included age, education level, employment, activity restriction, frequency of breakfast/week, frequency of lunch/week, and frequency of dinner/week. Physical factors included disease status, weight change, consumption of alcohol, number of days of walking per week, duration of walking at a time, body mass index (BMI), and discomfort due to changes in hearing. Psychological factors included stress, subjective body awareness, subjective health status, depressive symptoms, and QOL. Complex sample crosstabs and chi-square tests were conducted, and regression was performed to examine the association between the variables by economic status. Results: The factors that influenced the QOL of elderly women with low economic status were arthritis, alcohol consumption, subjective health status, and depressive symptoms, with an explanatory power of 54.3% (F = 14.94, p < 0.001). The factors that influenced the QOL of the medium economic status group were activity restriction, frequency of dinner/week, arthritis, number of days of walking per week, BMI, stress, subjective health status, and depressive symptoms, with an explanatory power of 48.6% (F = 9.82, p < 0.001). For the high economic status group, influential factors were age, restricted activity, arthritis, number of days of walking per week, stress, and depressive symptoms with an explanatory power of 49.0% (F = 69.76, p < 0.001). Conclusions: This study identified different factors that contributed to the QOL of elderly women by economic status.


Author(s):  
Eunjoo Lee

This article aims to examine the influencing factors on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in middle-aged adults with hypertension. HRQOL was assessed using EQ-5D from 263 middle-aged adults (40-60 years) with hypertension who participated in the 6th Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2014). There were statistically significant differences in health-related quality of life according to income, education, subjective health status, experience of discomfort, activity limitation, stress, and aerobic physical activity. Factors influencing on health-related quality of life in middle-aged adults with hypertension were subjective health status, experience of discomfort, activity limitation, depression, and stress, which explained about 50% of total variance. These factors should be included in the nursing intervention, and psychological aspects such as depression should be emphasized.


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