Does engagement impact depression? Five aspects of engagement (an index of social engagement (SEI) "activity time," "identification with past roles," "reduced engagement," and "contact with family and friends") were used to determine if theories of engagement explain depression in the nursing home. Activity theory suggests high levels of engagement should be related to lower levels of depression. In contrast, as engagement theory suggests high levels of engagement should be related to higher levels of depression. Data from U.S. nursing home residents (n=6,468) were utilized to examine the relationship between engagement and depression to show that neither theory is fully supported across all aspects of engagement. Rather, support was found for exploring a new theory of "stressful aging" in explaining depression in the nursing home. Specifically, results show that stress in the form of negative interactions ("conflict") and "pain" frequency are better explanations for depression in the nursing home. In addition, the distribution of depression was explored. There has been a notable lack of research on the distribution of depression among the nursing home elderly. Rather, we often assume it is the same in the nursing home as it is in the community. My results show that this is not a safe assumption. Findings suggest that that the nursing home is a unique setting and that it is important to test the relationship between variables of interest rather than assume that it is the same as in the community. Finally, results also show that it is important to consider gender in understanding how engagement impacts depression in the nursing home. Gender differences would have obscured the relationship between engagement and depression if not included. The results confirm that rather than assume that research on the community dwelling aged is transferable to the nursing home setting, research should be conducted on the nursing home elderly as a separate and unique population. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2004. / Date of Defense: May 21, 2004. / Depression, Engagement, Aging / Includes bibliographical references. / Jill Quadagno, Professor Directing Dissertation; Marie Cowart, Outside Committee Member; John Reynolds, Committee Member; James Orcutt, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_168114 |
| Contributors | Deshotels, Tina Hebert (authoraut), Quadagno, Jill (professor directing dissertation), Cowart, Marie (outside committee member), Reynolds, John (committee member), Orcutt, James (committee member), Department of Sociology (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
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