This study uses household-based convoy to indicate one’s informal social support system. It consists of four circles. The most inner circle reflects one’s household structure. It is followed by non-coresiding family members, relatives, and friends who have contacted the focal person more than once a week. At first, we are interested to know whether each circle of the household-based convoy has an independent effect on depression. Secondly, we are also interested to know whether the completeness of the household-based convoy has an effect on depression.
The data used for analysis come from the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan conducted by the Provincial Institute of Family Planning and the Population Studies Center and Institute of Gerontology of the University of Michigan in 1989. When the cases who answer less than eight questions on depression are deleted, it has a total of 3,856 cases aged 60 or above for this analysis.
The questions on depression are adopted from CESD-10. Three answers are provided for each question and scored with 0, 1.5, and 3. The scores of the ten questions are accumulated to form an index of depression ranged from 0 to 30. The score of 10 is taken as the cutting point. Those who have a score of 10 or above are taken as having a propensity of depression; and the rest, without the propensity of depression.
The results of this study show that 15% of the sample has a propensity of depression. It has also been found that number of traveling activities, IADL, number of chronic diseases, self-rated health and income, and ethnic have a significant effect on depression, when the household-based convoy is not included in the Logistic regression model. Once the household-based convoy is included, the effect of number of traveling activities and ethnic disappeared. On the other hand, we have found that three out of the four circle of the household-based convoy have a significant effect on depression, with the exception of the circle for relatives. In addition, the completeness of the household-based convoy also has a significant effect on depression.
