Psychosocial and vascular risk factors of depression in later life

The interaction between cerebrovascular disease and neuroticism in late‐life depression: a cross‐sectional study

“…A high level of vascular disease did reduce rather than raise the depressogenic potential of neuroticism in this large epidemiological study. This adds credibility to similar results from a small case-control design in a mixed gender population (Oldehinkel et al, 2003). This negative interaction effect between neuroticism and vascular disease clearly differs from the positive interaction effects between neuroticism and life events (Ormel et al, 2001) or disability (Lyness et al, 1998a) which led to raise the levels of depressive symptoms.…”

“…A positive interaction between CVRF/CVD and neuroticism would be likely since neuroticism raises the depressogenic effects of life-events (Ormel et al, 2001) and physical illness (Lyness et al, 1998a); and because neuroticism has a negative influence on adherence to medical treatment in cardiac and other patients (Evangelista et al, 2001;Glazer et al, 2002). So far the interaction between CVRF/CVD and neuroticism in models of late-life depression has only been studied in a small case-control design with negative results (Oldehinkel et al, 2003).…”

Early‐life risk factors for late‐onset depression

“…It has been found that people with EOD have higher levels of neuroticism (i.e. the long standing personality disposition to experience negative emotional states such as depression and anxiety) and parental depression whereas those with LOD have higher levels of life stress (Henderson et al, 1997;Ormel et al, 2001;Van den Berg et al, 2001;Oldehinkel et al, 2003). The LOD group in these studies, however, was not necessarily free of prior depressive episodes.…”

Is vascular depression a distinct sub-type of depressive disorder? A review of causal evidence

“…Van den Berg et al (2001) studied 132 older depressed patients and identified three distinct pathways: an early-onset group associated with a family history and neuroticism, a late-onset group associated with severe life stresses and a lateonset group associated with vascular risk factors. Oldehinkel et al (2003) considered late-life depression from the standpoint of a variety of aetiological models, including the stress-vulnerability model and the independent pathways model. They found a significantly stronger effect of vascular risk on 'out-ofthe-blue' depressive episodes than on episodes preceded by stressful life events.…”