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Multicenter Study
. 2007 Nov:191:393-401.
doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.107.036772.

Prevalence of depressive symptoms and syndromes in later life in ten European countries: the SHARE study

E Castro-Costa  1 , M Dewey, R Stewart, S Banerjee, F Huppert, C Mendonca-Lima, C Bula, F Reisches, J Wancata, K Ritchie, M Tsolaki, R Mateos, M Prince
Affiliations
Multicenter Study

Prevalence of depressive symptoms and syndromes in later life in ten European countries: the SHARE study

E Castro-Costa et al. Br J Psychiatry. 2007 Nov.

Abstract

Background: The EURO-D, a12-item self-report questionnaire for depression, was developed with the aim of facilitating cross-cultural research into late-life depression in Europe.

Aims: To describe the national variation in depression symptoms and syndrome prevalence across ten European countries.

Method: The EURO-D was administered to cross-sectional nationally representative samples of non-institutionalised persons aged > or =50 years (n=22 777). The effects of age, gender, education and cognitive functioning on individual symptoms and EURO-D factor scores were estimated. Country-specific depression prevalence rates and mean factor scores were re-estimated, adjusted for these compositional effects.

Results: The prevalence of all symptoms was higher in the Latin ethno-lingual group of countries, especially symptoms related to motivation. Women scored higher on affective suffering; older people and those with impaired verbal fluency scored higher on motivation.

Conclusions: The prevalence of individual EURO-D symptoms and of probable depression (cut-off score > or =4) varied consistently between countries. Standardising for effects of age, gender, education and cognitive function suggested that these compositional factors did not account for the observed variation.

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