Does emotional dysregulation mediate the relationship between disability and depressive symptoms in older people?

Emotion dysregulation has been consistently linked to psychopathology, and the relationship between disability and depressive symptomatology in old age is well-known.

To examine the mediational role of emotional dysregulation in the relationship between perceived disability and depressive symptomatology in older adults.

Two hundred eighty-three participants, aged 60-96 years (M±SD=74.22±8.69; 62.9% women; 29.0% with long-term care support [LTC-S] and 71.0% community residents without LTC-S), were assessed with the Geriatric Depression Scale-8 (GDS-8), the World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule-2 (WHODAS-2), and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-16 (DERS-16).

A mediation model was established, which revealed: (1) a moderate association between WHODAS-2 and GDS-8 (β=0.20; p<.001); (2) DERS-16 partially and weakly mediated the relationship between WHODAS-2 and GDS-8 (β=0.003; p<.01). The model explained 31.9% of the variance of depressive symptoms. An inconsistent mediation model was obtained in the LTC-S group.

Globally, our findings indicate that disability has an indirect relationship with depressive symptomatology through emotional dysregulation (except for those in the LTC-S). Accordingly, we present suggestions for the treatment of depressive symptoms and for the inclusion of other emotion regulation variables in the study of the disability-depressive symptom link in future studies with older people in the LTC-S.