Intergenerational relationships and depressive symptom trajectories of older rural Chinese adults

Abstract

Objective: The present study examined the trajectory patterns of depressive symptoms of older rural Chinese adults in migrant families and the role of intergenerational relationships in predicting the trajectory class memberships. Methods : The data were derived from the 2001, 2003, 2006 and 2009 waves of the longitudinal survey “The Well-being of Older People in Anhui Province”. 486 respondents who had at least one migrant adult children at all the four waves were included. Growth mixture modeling was used to investigate the trajectory classifications of depressive symptoms, as well as antecedents in differentiating the class memberships. Findings: The findings suggested a two-class model to interpret depressive symptom trajectory patterns: persistently high symptoms and low but increasing symtpoms . Older adults who had better intergenerational relationships at baseline were more likely to have low but increasing symptoms after controling for other covariates.