Associations between objectively measured sedentary behavior patterns and depressive symptoms in older adults: A cross sectional study

Background: The association between sedentary behavior and geriatric depressive symptoms remains unclear. Moreover, few studies use objective measurement to examine the relationship between comprehensive sedentary behavior patterns and geriatric depressive symptoms. Aims: To investigate the association between sedentary behavior patterns and geriatric depressive symptoms in older adults by objective measurement. Methods: A cross-sectional study was implemented in an outpatient department from September 2020 to September 2021. Participants were community-dwelling older adults aged 65 and older who could walk independently and were not at risk for cognitive dysfunction. Sedentary behavior patterns were measured by a tri-axial accelerometer for 7 consecutive days, and geriatric depressive symptoms were measured via the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale. A binary logistic regression model and multiple linear regression model were performed to examine the relationship between sedentary behavior patterns and geriatric depressive symptoms scores. Results: A total of 167 older Taiwanese adults (mean age: 80.2 ± 7.0 years; 50.9% male; 15.6% at risk for geriatric depressive symptoms) were included. After adjusting for potential confounders, achieving sedentary behavior time >9 h/day was not significantly associated with geriatric depressive symptoms; greater times of sedentary bouts and more sedentary breaks were also not associated with geriatric depressive symptoms. Conclusion: This study showed that the sedentary behavior patterns were not associated with geriatric depressive symptoms among older adults in the study sample. However, the important limitation in this study was that passive versus mentally active sedentary behavior were not assessed. It is suggested that further research could simultaneously use objective measurement and self-reported questionnaires to completely clarify the association between sedentary behavior patterns and geriatric depressive symptoms in older adults.