Old gay men playing
Results indicated, however, an interaction between living arrangements and family connectedness. ( Reference Purcell, Heisel, Speice, Franus, Conwell and Duberstein2012) conducted a study with 130 adults aged 50 years and older who suffered from a mood disorder and found that living alone was not associated with suicidal ideation. The mixed empirical evidence on the link between living alone and depression suggests that the relationship is likely to be more complex than a simple direct relationship. An Australian study of gay men aged 50 years and older (Lyons, Reference Lyons2015) did not find an association between living alone and depression, raising the possibility that the relationship is not evident among older gay men. There appears to be just one study that has examined the link between living alone and depression among gay men. ( Reference Chou, Ho and Chi2006) found the link in older women but not older men in their sample of Chinese adults aged 60 years and older. ( Reference Tintle, Bacon, Kostyuchenko, Gutovich and Bromet2011) found the relationship among a sample of Ukrainian older men but not older women (aged 50 years and older) and Chou et al. ( Reference Oh, Park, Lee, Kim, Choi and Nam2015) supported the relationship between living alone and higher levels of depressive symptoms among older men and women in a Korean sample aged 60 years and older.
The relationship has not been investigated among older gay men.Īlthough there is a theoretical explanation to link living alone with depression among older adults, empirical evidence is mixed, with the results varying according to gender, age, and nationality of the participants. Low levels of a sense of belonging have been associated with depressive symptoms among older adults (McLaren et al., Reference McLaren, Gomez, Bailey and Van Der Horst2007) and among gay men (McLaren et al., Reference McLaren, Jude and McLachlan2008). ( Reference Hagerty, Lynch-Sauer, Patusky, Bouwsema and Collier1992) defined a sense of belonging as an individual's experience of being valued or important, and as though one fits in with those around them. Others have proposed that people need a psychological sense of belonging for mental health (Hagerty et al., Reference Hagerty, Lynch-Sauer, Patusky, Bouwsema and Collier1992). These interpersonal relationships need to be frequent, positive, and stable (Baumeister and Leary, Reference Baumeister and Leary1995). Baumeister and Leary ( Reference Baumeister and Leary1995) proposed that people “have a pervasive drive to form and maintain. . .lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal relationships” (p. Living alone has been identified as a risk factor for thwarted belongingness, which occurs when the basic human need to belong is unmet (Van Orden et al., Reference Van Orden, Witte, Cukrowicz, Braithwaite, Selby and Joiner2010). This relationship has been explained at least in part by a lack of belonging. Given that older gay men are exposed to the risks associated with age and sexual orientation, it is likely to be a significant problem for this population.Ī risk factor for depression among older adults is living alone (Chou et al., Reference Chou, Ho and Chi2006 Tintle et al., Reference Tintle, Bacon, Kostyuchenko, Gutovich and Bromet2011 Oh et al., Reference Oh, Park, Lee, Kim, Choi and Nam2015). Available evidence indicates that 30% of a sample of gay men aged 50–82 years self-reported feeling depressed (Shippy et al., Reference Shippy, Cantor and Brennan2004) and that the average score for depressive symptoms among a sample of gay men aged 44–75 years demonstrated that the sample experienced depressive symptoms “some or a little of the time” (Wight et al., Reference Wight, LeBlanc, de Vries and Detels2012). It is difficult to obtain prevalence rates specifically for older gay men. In relation to sexual orientation, Cochran and Mays ( Reference Cochran and Mays2009) reported that 21.5% of their sample of gay men were likely to meet the criteria for major depressive disorder in the previous 12 months and were 2.3 times more likely to have a probable diagnosis than heterosexual men. ( Reference Pirkis2009) reported the age-adjusted prevalence rate of clinically significant depression to be 8.6% and a major depressive episode to be 1.9% among a community sample of 9,013 Australian men aged 60 years and over.
Older age (Pirkis et al., Reference Pirkis2009 Zhang et al., Reference Zhang, Xu, Nie, Zhang and Wu2012) and sexual orientation (Cochran and Mays, Reference Cochran and Mays2009) are risk factors for depression among men.