Depression and social support between China’ rural and urban empty-nest elderly

This study compared levels of depression and social support among empty-nest elderly who living in the rural and urban area of Hunan province, China. This cross-sectional study enrolled 809 empty-nest elderly living throughout the province as the study respondents. The general information, depression conditions and social supports were investigated by using the self-made General Information Questionnaire, Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS). Variables are presented as mean ± standard deviation (SD) or frequency. Independent t-test and χ2-tests were used to compare the socio-demographic factors, depression score and social support scores of the rural empty-nest elderly to the urban empty-nest ones; multilevel modeling was used to analyze the socio-demographic factors and social support predicted the level of depression among the empty-nest old subjects. The differences in gender, education level, marital status, economic status, self-perceived income, insurance, children visit frequency and religious beliefs factors between rural and urban empty-nester old people were statistically significant (p < 0.05). The average GDS score of rural group was (14.57 ± 5.43), which was higher than the average GDS score (13.18 ± 6.51) of urban group (p < 0.01). Objective support scores showed statistical significance between the rural and urban empty-nest elderly (p < 0.05). There are differences between rural and urban empty-nest elderly in the aspects of general data, depression status, social support and so on, we should intervene them effectively according to their different characteristics.