Pathway Analysis of Depression Status and Influencing Factors in Elderly Diabetic Patients: The Mediating Role of duration of sleep

Objective To analyze the current situation of depression in elderly patients with diabetes, and to deeply explore the action paths of various influencing factors, with the aim of providing references for formulating targeted psychological intervention plans and optimizing the comprehensive management model of elderly diabetes in clinical practice. Method This article utilized the data from the fifth round of the China Health and Elderly Care Follow-up Survey in 2020, and ultimately included 1,440 individuals for analysis. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS27.0 and MPLUS 8.3 software. Results The average age of the 1,440 elderly diabetic patients included in the analysis was 67.92 ± 5.745 years old, and the prevalence of depression was 46.67%. The overall fitting degree of the path analysis model is good. The path coefficient indicates that the higher the income (β = -0.178, P < 0.001), the worse the self-assessment of health status (β = 0.248, P < 0.001), and the more severe the pain degree (β = 0.109) P < 0.001), the more co-occurring other chronic diseases (β = 0.236, P = 0.003), the poorer self-assessment of memory (β = -0.224, P < 0.001), and the weaker daily activity ability (β = -0.540, Elderly diabetic patients (P < 0.001) and those with shorter duration of sleep (β = -0.423, P < 0.001) have a higher possibility of depression. In addition to the direct impact, variables such as gender, self-assessment of health, pain, and the number of coexisting chronic diseases can also have an indirect effect on depression in elderly diabetic patients. Conclusion The incidence of depression is relatively high among elderly diabetic patients. The occurrence of depression is closely related to multiple factors. Staff in primary health institutions should pay particular attention to the psychological conditions of diabetic patients with poor self-assessed health status, accompanied by pain symptoms, and co-suffering from other chronic diseases.