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Holland JM, Schutte KK, Brennan PL, Moos RH. The structure of late-life depressive symptoms across a 20-year span: a taxometric investigation. Psychology and aging. 2010 Mar 1; 25(1):142-56.
Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects. Past studies of the underlying structure of depressive symptoms have yielded mixed results, with some studies supporting a continuous conceptualization and others supporting a categorical one. However, no study has examined this research question with an exclusively older adult sample, despite the potential uniqueness of late-life depressive symptoms. In the present study, the underlying structure of late-life depressive symptoms was examined among a sample of 1,289 individuals across 3 waves of data collection spanning 20 years. The authors employed a taxometric methodology using indicators of depression derived from the Research Diagnostic Criteria (R. L. Spitzer, J. Endicott, and E. Robins, 1978). Maximum eigenvalue analyses and inchworm consistency tests generally supported a categorical conceptualization and identified a group that was primarily characterized by thoughts about death and suicide. However, compared to a categorical depression variable, depressive symptoms treated continuously were generally better predictors of relevant criterion variables. These findings suggest that thoughts of death and suicide may characterize a specific type of late-life depression, yet a continuous conceptualization still typically maximizes the predictive utility of late-life depressive symptoms.
