Impact of late-life depression on the social network.

The author tested the hypothesis that a major depressive disorder contributes to a decline in social support by studying data from 331 subjects 65 years of age and older who had been selected at random from a larger community group and screened for a major depressive disorder and the availability of social supports. Impaired social support was associated with the presence of a major depressive disorder. Thirty months later, however, the surviving subjects whose social supports had improved were 2.62 times more likely to have been depressed earlier than those whose social supports did not improve. Major depressive disorder was a significant predictor of improvement in social supports at follow-up.