Abstract
Objectives
To determine the impact of depressive symptoms on health service use and catastrophic
health expenditure, and whether it varied by per-capita household consumption, health
insurance schemes, and physical comorbidities.
Design
Population-based panel data analysis.
Setting and Participants
Participants were 8585 adults aged 45 years and older in 2011, and had completed a
follow-up survey in 2013, 2015, and 2018 from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal
Study (CHARLS).
Methods
Depressive symptoms were assessed using the short form of the Center for Epidemiologic
Studies Depression Scale. The number of outpatient visits and inpatient hospital days
were used as proxies for health service use. When households’ out-of-pocket spending
on health was 40% or above its total expenditure, it was defined as a catastrophic
health expenditure. With the panel data approach, random-effects negative binomial
regression and logistic regression were used to analyze the effect of depressive symptoms
on health service use and health care expenditure, respectively.
Results
Depressive symptoms were associated with increased number of outpatient visits (incidence
rate ratio 1.52; 95% CI 1.44–1.60) and days spent in the hospital as an inpatient
(1.52; 1.43–1.62). Depressive symptoms were also associated with a significantly increased
likelihood of catastrophic health expenditure (odds ratio 1.54; 95% CI 1.43–1.66).
Their effect on outpatient visits, inpatient hospital days, and catastrophic health
expenditure persisted in different age, per-capita household consumption, and physical
comorbidities groups, and across all health insurance programs.
Conclusions and Implications
Depressive symptoms were risk indicators that can drive health service use and household
financial stress. Given the rapidly aging population in China, there is an urgent
need to integrate mental health care into routine physical examinations to alleviate
the economic impacts of depressive symptoms on individuals in China. specifically
for individuals with physical comorbidities and in poorer socioeconomic conditions.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 24, 2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofFootnotes
This work was supported by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant number 2021M702936), the Joint Project of Medical Science and Technology of Henan Province (grant number LHGJ20220428), and the Collaborative Innovation Major Project of Zhengzhou (grant number 20XTZX08017).
The data used in this study are available on the official website of CHARLS (http://charls.pku.edu.cn).
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Identification
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© 2022 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of AMDA - The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.
