The areas of life dissatisfaction and their relationships to depression at different life stages: findings from a nationally representative survey

Abstract

This study examined the areas of life dissatisfaction and their relationships to depression at different life stages in men and women, independently of socio-demographic characteristics in South Korea. Data were taken from the 2016 Korea Welfare Panel Study. Depression was assessed using the 11-items of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and probable depression was defined as the CES-D-11 score of >= 9. Level of satisfaction was measured in seven different life domains (health, family income, residential environment, family relationship, occupation, social relationship and leisure activities) using a 5-point Likert scale. Dissatisfaction was defined as 'very dissatisfied' and 'dissatisfied'. Respondents were grouped into: young (19-39 years; n = 2,713), middle-aged (40-64; n = 4,864) and older adults (65+; n = 4,669). The mean age of the participants was 56.0 years (SD = 18.6) and 57.1% were female (unweighted). The mean CES-D-11 score was 3.5 (SD = 4.8) and 13.7% (n = 1,675) had probable depression (unweighted). The percentage of domain-specific dissatisfaction was highest in family income (28.7%), followed by health (15.9%), leisure activities (14.9%), occupation (11.6%), residential environment (10.2%), social relationship (3.5%) and family relationship (3.0%) (weighted). These percentages were similar across all age groups, except for health and family income in both sexes. In addition, the association between domain-specific dissatisfaction and probable depression was generally stronger in women than in men across all age groups. Logistic regression results (weighted) showed that dissatisfaction with health and leisure activities were consistently associated with probable depression across almost all age groups in both sexes. In addition, family relationship appeared more important in older women, whereas social relationship appeared more important in older men. Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with family income and occupation did not appear to consistently predict depression above and beyond objective indicators, except for older women. Taken together, these findings would help develop sex- and age-specific policies to tackle depression in South Korea.