Treatment for Insomnia Symptoms is Associated with Reduced Depression Among Older Adults: A Propensity Score Matching Approach

ABSTRACT

Objectives

The study aimed to investigate the effect of utilization of treatment for insomnia symptoms on the prevalence of major depressive disorder among older adults in India.

Methods

We used the data from the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI), 2017–18. The sample included 10,911 older individuals who reported insomnia symptoms. The propensity score matching (PSM) approach was used to compare the depressive disorder among those who received vs. not received treatment.

Results

Only 5.7% of older adults reporting insomnia symptoms received treatment. On average, prevalence of depressive disorder among men and women who received treatment for insomnia symptoms was lesser by 0.79 and 0.33 points, respectively, than those who did not receive treatment. In the matched sample, treatment for insomnia symptoms was significantly associated with lesser prevalence of depression for both older men (β= −0.68, p < .001) and older women (β= −0.62, p < .001).

Conclusions

The current findings suggest that treatment for insomnia symptoms can reduce the risk of depressive disorder among older adults and the effects are higher among older men than women.

KEYWORDS:

• Depression
• India
• insomnia symptoms
• older adults
• treatment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available in the repository of the Gateway to Global Aging Data (www.g2aging.org).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.