Felt age and cognitive-affective depressive symptoms in late life

This study examined both cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between felt age and cognitive-affective symptom dimensions of depression in late life.

Data for this study came from two interview waves (T1 and T2) of the National Health and Aging Trend Study. Sample persons (n = 6680) who resided in their own or another's home at T1 were included. At T2 (one year later), 5414 of the original 6680 were interviewed and depressive symptom data were available for 5371 sample persons. The associations between felt age and depressive symptoms were analyzed using stepwise linear regression analyses.

At T1, (1) more than 70% of the sample felt younger and 7% felt older than their chronological age; and (2) younger felt age was associated with lower depressive symptoms, and older felt age was associated with higher depressive symptoms. Controlling for T1 depressive symptoms and health conditions, older felt age at T1 also predicted higher depressive symptoms at T2; however, chronological age and felt age explained only a small amount of variance in depressive symptom scores.

The self-enhancement or self-protection function of younger felt age at T1 does not appear to extend longitudinally to T2, while the negative depressive effect of older felt age at T1 extends to T2.