Social isolation and depressive symptoms among older adults with different functional status in China: A latent class analysis

Social isolation is considered a risk factor for depression in older adults. Since there may be heterogeneity in the experience of social isolation, we aimed to investigate social isolation patterns and their association with depressive symptoms, for older adults with different functional status separately. This study used data from the fifth wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). A total of 8262 participants, defined as older adults aged 60 years and above, were included in the analysis, comprising 49.9 % (n = 4124) men and 50.1 % (n = 4138) women. Latent class analysis was conducted to identify social isolation patterns. Binary logistic regression was used to estimate the association between latent classes and depressive symptoms. Two distinct classes were identified in participants with functional dependency and three classes were identified in participants without functional dependency. The severely isolated with minimal family and social contact group was associated with a higher risk of depressive symptoms in both subgroups (participants with functional dependency: OR = 1.319, 95%CI: 1.032-1.686; participants without functional dependency: OR = 1.537, 95%CI: 1.209-1.953). No difference was found in the risk of depressive symptoms between the moderately isolated with family contact group and the low isolated group among participants without functional dependency (OR = 1.020, 95%CI: 0.83-1.252). Risk of depressive symptoms varies with different social isolation patterns among older people with different functional status.