Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the association between somatic disorders, lifestyle factors, incident and persistent depressive symptoms, and low life satisfaction in a longitudinal study in South Africa.
Methods: We analyzed longitudinal data from two consecutive waves, 2346 men aged 40 years or older in 2014/2015 in wave 1 and 1864 men of wave 1 in 2018/2019 in wave 2 of the "Health and Ageing in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an International Network for the Demographic Evaluation of Populations and their Health (INDEPTH) Community in South Africa (HAALSI)".
Results: In total, 360 of 1932 male participants without depressive symptoms in wave 1 (24.3%) had incident depressive symptoms in wave 2 and 77 of 349 men had depressive symptoms in both waves 1 and 2 (persistent depressive symptoms). In all, 457 of 1258 male participants without low life satisfaction in Wave 1 (47.6%) had incident low life satisfaction in Wave 2, and 360 of 998 men had low life satisfaction at both Wave 1 and 2 (persistent low life satisfaction). In the unadjusted logistic regression analysis, having kidney disease and living with HIV had greater odds of incident depressive symptoms. In adjusted analysis, alcohol dependence (Adjusted Odds Ratio-AOR: 4.54, 95% Confidence Interval-CI: 1.05-19.66) was positively correlated and 1-7 and 8-11 years of education (AOR: 0.45, 95% CI: 0.27-0.74, and AOR: 0.20, 95% CI: 0.07-0.54, respectively) were negatively associated with persistent depressive symptoms. Increasing age increased the odds (AOR: 1.03, 95% CI: 1.01-1.04), while higher education (≥12 years) (AOR: 0.50, 95% CI: 0.33-0.76), and high physical activity (AOR: 0.68, 95% CI: 0.52-0.89) decreased the odds of incident low life satisfaction. Increasing age (AOR: 1.03, 95% CI: 1.02-1.04) and tobacco use (AOR: 1.64, 95% CI: 1.23-2.19) increased the odds and high physical activity (AOR: 0.73, 95% CI: 0.56-0.96) decreased the odds of persistent low life satisfaction.
Conclusions: Of the seven chronic conditions and five lifestyle factors evaluated, alcohol dependence increased the odds of persistent depressive symptoms and low physical activity, and tobacco use increased the odds of incident and/or persistent low life satisfaction among men in rural South Africa.
Keywords: South Africa; chronic diseases; incident depression; longitudinal study; low life satisfaction; persistent depression.