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  • O'Hare O' Sullivan Flood & Kenny 2016 Journal of Affective Disorders

    Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Affective Disorders. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Affective Disorders, 191, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2015.11.029

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Seasonal and meteorological associations with depressive symptoms in older adults: a geo-epidemiological study

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<mark>Journal publication date</mark>02/2016
<mark>Journal</mark>Journal of Affective Disorders
Volume191
Number of pages8
Pages (from-to)172–179
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date19/11/15
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Background

Given increased social and physiological vulnerabilities, older adults may be particularly susceptible to environmental influences on mood. Whereas the impact of season on mood is well described for adults, studies rarely extend to elders or include objective weather data. We investigated the impact of seasonality and meteorological factors on risk of current depressive symptoms in older adults.
Methods

We used data on 8027 participants from the first wave of The Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a population-representative cohort of adults aged 50+. Depressive symptoms were recorded using the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Season was defined according to the World Meteorological Organisation. Data on climate over the preceding thirty years, and temperature and rain over the preceding month, were provided by the Irish Meteorological Service and linked using Geographic Information Systems techniques to participant's geo-coded locations at a resolution of one kilometre.
Results

The highest levels of depressive symptoms were reported in winter and the lowest in spring (mean 6.56 [CI95% 6.09, 7.04] vs. 5.81 [CI95%: 5.40, 6.22]). In fully adjusted linear regression models, participants living in areas with higher levels of rainfall in the preceding and/or current calendar month had greater depressive symptoms (0.04 SE 0.02; p=0.039 per 10 mm additional rainfall per month) while those living in areas with sunnier climates had fewer depressive symptoms (−2.67 SE 0.88; p=0.003 for every additional hour of average annual daily sunshine).
Limitations

This was a cross-sectional analysis thus causality cannot be inferred; monthly rain and temperature averages were available only on a calendar month basis while monthly local levels of sunshine data were not available.
Conclusions

Environmental cues may influence mood in older adults and thus have relevance for the recognition and treatment of depression in this age group.