Association of depressive symptoms and dementia among middle-aged and elderly community-dwelling adults: Results from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS)

There has been a long-standing debate on whether depressive symptoms are associated with dementia. The aim of this study was to examine whether depressive symptoms were associated with a high risk for dementia in Chinese adults. A total of 13,426 Chinese adults (≥45 years old) from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) baseline were selected for analysis. Depressive symptoms were assessed by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-10). Dementia was assessed by the Community Screening Instrument for Dementia (CSI-D). When using linear regression for sensitivity analysis, there is still a correlation between depressive symptoms and dementia. Of the 13,426 respondents, the mean (SD) age was 60 (10) years old. The prevalence of depressive symptoms and dementia among participants was 38 % (n = 945) and 18.3 % (n = 2457), respectively. After fully adjusted for demographic factors, health behavior and psychological factors, living and working conditions factors, social network factors, and social policy factors, the cross-sectional analyses showed that depressive symptoms had an increased risk of dementia (OR = 1.390, 95%CI: 1.253–1.543), compared with those without depressive symptoms. In addition, sensitivity analyses of the association between depressive symptoms and dementia were unchanged when reanalyzing using linear regression. In this study, depression symptoms may be associated with dementia. Regardless of whether depressive symptoms acts as a dementia risk factor or an early symptom, monitoring depressive symptoms is crucial to watch for potential dementia onset.