The global aging problem is very serious. With the increase of age, the risk of depression in the elderly is also increasing. It is necessary to find effective strategies to reduce the depressive symptoms of the elderly. This study investigated the relationship between depressive symptoms, walking ability, and self-evaluation health of middle-aged and elderly Chinese after controlling demographic variables, health status, and lifestyle. The data is from the China health and retirement longitudinal study database in 2018. Six thousand eight hundred thirty-five people over the age of 50 have complete information on walking ability, self-assessed health status, and depressive symptoms. SPSS 27.0 software was used to conduct Z-test, logistic regression and linear hierarchical regression analysis on the collected data. The results showed that poor walking ability and poor self-evaluation health status of middle-aged and elderly people were significantly related to depression. The study concluded that middle-aged and elderly people with good walking ability and self-rated health status had a lower risk of depression. This study can provide reference for formulating specific and effective intervention measures for senile depression.
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.