Abstract
Cognitive social capital is crucial for mental wellbeing and physical disability in order to avoid late-life depression. The objective of this study was to investigate the mediating effect of cognitive social capital (interpersonal trust and reciprocity) on the relationship between physical disability and depression in elderly people of rural Pakistan. For this purpose, 146 respondents aged 60 years or above and residents of rural areas of district Muzaffargarh (Punjab, Pakistan) were approached for data collection. The questionnaire includes socio-demographic variables (gender, age, education, marital status, family system, living status, household income, and number of chronic diseases); the geriatric depressive symptoms scale (GDS-15) was used to measure depression, physical disability was evaluated through ADL and IADL scales, and cognitive social capital, which includes interpersonal trust and reciprocity, was measured using single-item questions. It was found that interpersonal trust, reciprocity, depression, and physical disability were significantly correlated with each other and physical disability was directly associated with depression. In mediation analysis, reciprocity mediated the relationship between physical disability and depression. Our findings highlight the need to enhance cognitive social capital interventions and develop policies to promote mental and physical health of rural elderly.
Highlights
Depression is known as the global mental health problem in elderly people [1]
We investigated the effect of cognitive social capital, which includes interpersonal trust and reciprocity, on the relationship between physical disability and geriatric depression in the elderly population of rural Pakistan
This study revealed that physical disability was directly associated with depression by confirming previous studies showing the same results as the relationship between limitations in activities of daily living and mental health problems [11]
Summary
Depression is known as the global mental health problem in elderly people [1]. Meta-analytic research found that 3.29% of elderly population of the world are temporary and 16.52% are permanent victims of depression [2]. Variations in depressive symptoms among elderly people in different societies highlight the need of further research to investigate the effect of social atmosphere with respect to late-life depression [3]. The projections based on prior researches show that depression will be the second foremost burden of disease at global level by the year 2020 [4]. The majority of elderly people with low socioeconomic status and poor living standard are victims of depression [5,6]. In 2017, the population aged 60 or above in Pakistan was 11.3 million and it is expected to increase up to
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