Socioeconomic resources predict trajectories of depression and resilience following disability

Adjustment to chronic disability is a topic of considerable focus in the rehabilitation sciences and constitutes an important public health problem given the adverse outcomes associated with maladjustment. While existing literature has established an association between disability onset and elevated rates of depression, resilience and alternative patterns of adjustment have received substantially less empirical inquiry. The current study sought to model heterogeneity in mental health responding to disability onset in later life while exploring the impact of socioeconomic resources on these latent patterns of adaptation.

Latent growth mixture modeling was utilized to identify trajectories of depressive symptoms surrounding physical disability onset in a population sample of older adults. Individuals with verified disability onset (n = 3,204) were followed across four measurement points representing a 6-year period.

Four trajectories of depressive symptoms were identified: resilience (56.5%), emerging depression (17.2%), remitting depression (13.4%), and chronic depression (12.9%). Socioeconomic resources were then analyzed as predictors of trajectory membership. Prior education and financial assets at the time of disability onset robustly predicted class membership in the resilient class compared to all other classes.

The course of adjustment in response to disability onset is heterogeneous. Our results confirm the presence of multiple pathways of adjustment surrounding late-life disability, with the most common outcome being near-zero depressive symptoms for the duration of the study. Socioeconomic resources strongly predicted membership in the resilient class compared with all other classes, indicating that such resources may play a protective role during the stress of physical disability onset. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).