Associations between depressive symptoms and geriatric syndromes in community-dwelling older adults in Japan: a cross-sectional study

Abstract Background It is estimated that 7.2% of community-dwelling older adults in worldwide have major depression. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the relationship between geriatric syndromes and depressive symptoms. Methods Data were obtained from 363 older adults (mean age 73.6 ± 6.6 years; women = 75.8%) who participated in a community-based health check. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15). Depression was defined as a GDS-15 score of ≥ 5. Further, geriatric syndromes in participants—such as frailty, sarcopenia, and locomotive syndrome—were assessed. Results There was a 28.1% prevalence of depressive symptoms. In a logistic regression analysis with depressive symptoms as the dependent variable, both pre-frailty (odds ratio [OR] 1.85, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.09–3.01) and frailty (OR 5.45, 95% CI 2.23–13.31) were found to be significantly higher in the depressive group. Conclusions Our findings suggest that depressive symptoms are associated with frailty and pre-frailty in community-dwelling older adults in Japan.