250wBackground: There is a paucity of research on the nature of life adversity in depressed and nondepressed older adults. Early life events work used in-depth interviews; however, larger epidemiological trials investigate life adversity using brief questionnaires. This study investigates the type of life adversity experienced in later life and its association with depression and compares adversity captured using a brief (LTE-Q) and in-depth (LEDS) measure.Methods: 960 participants over 65 years were recruited in UK primary care to complete the PHQ-9 and LTE-Q.A sub-sample (n=19) completed the LEDS and a question exploring the subjective experience of the LTE-Q and LEDS.Results: Important life adversity was reported on the LTE-Q in 48% of the sample. In the LTE-Q sample the prevalence of depression (PHQ-E the odds of depression. The LTE-Q only captured a proportion of adversity measured by the LEDS (42% vs 84%). Both measures showed health, bereavement and relationship events were most common.Limitations: The cross-sectional design limits the extent to which inferences can be drawn around the direction of causality between adversity and depression. Recall in older adults is questionable.Conclusions: UK older adults face adversity in areas of health, bereavement and relationships which are associated with depression. This has clinical relevance for psychological interventions for older adults to consider social context and social support. It helps identify the strengths and weaknesses of a brief adversity measure in large scale research. Further research is needed to explore the mechanisms of onset and direction of causality.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.