TOPLINE:
Internet use is associated with fewer depressive symptoms, higher life satisfaction, and better self-reported health among adults aged 50 years or older across 23 countries than nonuse, a new cohort study suggests.
METHODOLOGY:
Data were examined for more than 87,000 adults aged 50 years or older across 23 countries and from six aging cohorts.
Researchers examined the potential association between internet use and mental health outcomes, including depressive symptoms, life satisfaction, and self-reported health.
Polygenic scores were used for subset analysis to stratify participants from England and the United States according to their genetic risk for depression.
Participants were followed up for a median of 6 years.
TAKEAWAY:
Internet use was linked to consistent benefits across countries, including lower depressive symptoms (pooled average marginal effect [AME], −0.09; 95% CI, −0.12 to −0.07), higher life satisfaction (pooled AME, 0.07; 95% CI, 0.05-0.10), and better self-reported health (pooled AME, 0.15; 95% CI, 0.12-0.17).
Frequent internet users showed better mental health outcomes than nonusers, and daily internet users showed significant improvements in depressive symptoms and self-reported health in England and the United States.
Each additional wave of internet use was associated with reduced depressive symptoms (pooled AME, −0.06; 95% CI, −0.09 to −0.04) and improved life satisfaction (pooled AME, 0.05; 95% CI, 0.03-0.07).
Benefits of internet use were observed across all genetic risk categories for depression in England and the United States, suggesting potential utility regardless of genetic predisposition.
IN PRACTICE:
"Our findings are relevant to public health policies and practices in promoting mental health in later life through the internet, especially in countries with limited internet access and mental health services," the investigators wrote.
SOURCE:
The study was led by Yan Luo, Department of Data Science, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. It was published online November 18 in Nature Human Behaviour.
LIMITATIONS:
The possibility of residual confounding and reverse causation prevented the establishment of direct causality between internet use and mental health. Selection bias may have also existed due to differences in baseline characteristics between the analytic samples and entire populations. Internet use was assessed through self-reported items, which could have led to recall and information bias. Additionally, genetic data were available for participants only from England and the United States.
DISCLOSURES:
The study was funded in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The investigators reported no conflicts of interest.
Note: This article originally appeared on Medscape.
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