Observational study of the differential impact of time-varying depressive symptoms on all-cause and cause-specific mortality by health status in community-dwelling adults: the REGARDS study (original) (raw)

To assess the association between time-varying depressive symptoms with all-cause and cause-specific mortality. The REGARDS (Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke) is a national, population-based longitudinal study conducted from 2003 to 2007. General continental US communities. 29 491 black and white US adults ≥45 years randomly sampled within race-sex-geographical strata. Elevated depressive symptoms (Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) 4≥4) measured at baseline and on average 5 and 7 years later. Cox proportional hazard regression models assessed cancer, non-cardiovascular (cardiovascular disease (CVD)), CVD and all-cause mortality. The average age was 64.9 years; 55% were women; 41% black; 11.0% had elevated depressive symptoms; 54% had poor, fair or good health. Time-varying depressive symptoms were significantly associated with non-CVD (adjusted HR (aHR)=1.29, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.44) and all-cause (aHR=1.24, 95% CI 1.14 to 1.39), but not cancer (...