Association between Mobile Internet Use and Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms among Chinese Middle-Aged and Older Adults

Yunchen Ruan, FuZhou University
Qingbao Wang, Fuzhou University
Jiehua Lu, Peking University

This study aimed to identify potential trajectories of depressive symptoms in middle-aged and older Chinese adults and examine the associations between mobile internet use and trajectories of depressive symptoms. Data were obtained from 8,688 middle-aged and older adults aged =45 years from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS; 2013, 2015, and 2018). Group-based trajectory modeling and multivariate logistic regression models were used to explore the relationship between mobile internet use and trajectories of depressive symptoms. This study identified four distinct trajectories of depressive symptoms among the respondents: "low-level persistence" , "sub-low-level persistence" , "worsening", and "high-level persistence". Respondents using mobile internet had a lower risk in the "worsening" and "high-level persistence" classes. Those who used mobile internet almost daily had a lower risk in the "worsening" and "high-level persistence" classes. Overall, respondents who use mobile internet and have a higher intensity of mobile internet use are more likely to belong to the "low-level persistence" class. This study is of great significance in identifying potential and high-risk groups for depression and in formulating optimized policies and intervention measures for depression health.

Keywords: Population Ageing, Health and Morbidity, Longitudinal studies , Digital and computational demography

See paper.