Trajectories of depressive symptoms in Korean adults with diabetes: Individual differences and associations with life satisfaction and mortality

Abstract Objective We examined trajectories of depressive symptoms and their predictors in adults with diabetes. We assessed whether these trajectories were related to life satisfaction and mortality. Design Longitudinal, prospective observational study. Methods We analysed data from 1217 adults with diabetes (aged ≥45 years) in the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (2006–2018). Results Three trajectories of depressive symptomology were identified in growth mixture models: low/stable (i.e., low and stable levels of symptoms; 85.56%), high/decreasing (i.e., high levels of symptoms with a decreasing trajectory; 7.47%), and moderate/increasing (i.e., moderate levels of symptoms with an increasing trajectory; 6.98%). Participants with poor perceived health status at baseline were more likely to be in the moderate/increasing or high/decreasing classes than in the low/stable class. The moderate/increasing class had the lowest satisfaction with quality of life, followed by the high/decreasing and low/stable classes. The moderate/increasing and the high/decreasing classes had lower satisfaction with relationships with spouse and children than the low/stable class. The high/decreasing class had a higher mortality risk than the low/stable class. Conclusions Long‐term monitoring of depressive symptoms in adults with diabetes is warranted given their potential adverse impact on life satisfaction and mortality.