{"title":"Are Big Five personality traits associated with trajectories of depressive symptom among middle-aged and older adults in China?","authors":"Weichao Chen, Wanren Wang, Xiaoyan Wang","doi":"10.1007/s00127-025-02923-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Personality traits have been confirmed to be associated with mental health, but their influence on the trajectories of depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older adults in China is not well understood. This study seeks to identify distinct trajectories of depressive symptoms and explore their relationship with the Big Five personality traits in China.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Data was collected from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) for 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2012 were used in this study. 5376 individuals aged 45 and older were included in this study. Latent growth mixture modeling was applied to identify distinct trajectories of depressive symptoms, and multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the association between personality traits and these trajectories.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Three depressive symptom trajectories were identified: stable increasing with low starting point (53.18%), descending type with high starting point (8.03%), and stable at middle level (38.78%). Higher extraversion scores was associated with lower depressive symptom trajectories, while higher levels of openness and neuroticism were associated with an increased risk of severe depressive symptom trajectories. Heterogeneity analyses revealed that, among individuals aged 45-60, conscientiousness was negatively associated with depressive symptoms, while openness was positively related to depression. Among older adults (≥ 60 years), extraversion showed the strongest protective effect against depressive symptoms, while higher openness demonstrated a notably stronger association with depression. Additionally, females showed stronger associations between personality traits and depressive symptom than males.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Different trajectories of depressive symptoms are observed among middle-aged and older adults in China. The findings underscore the importance of tailored mental health monitoring, with distinct approaches needed for different genders and age groups.</p>","PeriodicalId":49510,"journal":{"name":"Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-025-02923-2","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHIATRY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Personality traits have been confirmed to be associated with mental health, but their influence on the trajectories of depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older adults in China is not well understood. This study seeks to identify distinct trajectories of depressive symptoms and explore their relationship with the Big Five personality traits in China.
Methods: Data was collected from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) for 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2012 were used in this study. 5376 individuals aged 45 and older were included in this study. Latent growth mixture modeling was applied to identify distinct trajectories of depressive symptoms, and multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the association between personality traits and these trajectories.
Results: Three depressive symptom trajectories were identified: stable increasing with low starting point (53.18%), descending type with high starting point (8.03%), and stable at middle level (38.78%). Higher extraversion scores was associated with lower depressive symptom trajectories, while higher levels of openness and neuroticism were associated with an increased risk of severe depressive symptom trajectories. Heterogeneity analyses revealed that, among individuals aged 45-60, conscientiousness was negatively associated with depressive symptoms, while openness was positively related to depression. Among older adults (≥ 60 years), extraversion showed the strongest protective effect against depressive symptoms, while higher openness demonstrated a notably stronger association with depression. Additionally, females showed stronger associations between personality traits and depressive symptom than males.
Conclusion: Different trajectories of depressive symptoms are observed among middle-aged and older adults in China. The findings underscore the importance of tailored mental health monitoring, with distinct approaches needed for different genders and age groups.
期刊介绍：
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology is intended to provide a medium for the prompt publication of scientific contributions concerned with all aspects of the epidemiology of psychiatric disorders - social, biological and genetic.
In addition, the journal has a particular focus on the effects of social conditions upon behaviour and the relationship between psychiatric disorders and the social environment. Contributions may be of a clinical nature provided they relate to social issues, or they may deal with specialised investigations in the fields of social psychology, sociology, anthropology, epidemiology, health service research, health economies or public mental health. We will publish papers on cross-cultural and trans-cultural themes. We do not publish case studies or small case series. While we will publish studies of reliability and validity of new instruments of interest to our readership, we will not publish articles reporting on the performance of established instruments in translation.
Both original work and review articles may be submitted.
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