| Abstract: | Contradictory findings have been reported about depression in the elderly living in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan regions of the United States. Additionally, the extent to which the same sets of variables are predictive of depression among the elderly living in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan environments is unknown. We examined these issues using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) and a national sample of elderly respondents. Findings indicated no differences in the average depression scores of metropolitan and nonmetropolitan elderly. Differences were observed in the social network variables found to be predictive of depression within each subgroup. Among the metropolitan elderly, intimate social relations were found to be independently associated with depression, while secondary social attachments were related to depression among the nonmetropolitan elderly. An examination of the buffering effect of social ties upon the relationship between stress and depression revealed that a simple additive model may not be adequate to describe the association between social network elements and depression among the elderly. |
