Abstract

Objective: Prior research on the longitudinal associations between depressive symptoms and loneliness has conflated between-person and within-person effects, resulting in confusion over causal influences. The present study used the random-intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) to disentangle between-person from within-person sources of variance.

Method: The study used a representative sample of adults older than 40 years from the German Ageing Survey (DEAS). To examine the influence of time lag on the strength of the predictive paths, analyses were conducted with lags of 3 and 6 years.

Results: The results showed that, at the within-person level, auto-regressive and cross-lagged paths were significant with lag length of 3 years but not 6 years.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that there is a reciprocal relationship between the variables that operates at intervals shorter than 6 years. However, the stable trait-like components of the variables account for much of the covariance between them. Recommendations include paying more attention to the factors that contribute to the stability of the 2 variables across time and situation in addition to short-term and symptom-focused interventions.

摘要

目的：先前关于抑郁症状和孤独感之间纵向关联的研究将人与人之间和人内的影响混为一谈，导致对因果影响的混淆。本研究使用随机截距交叉滞后面板模型 (RI-CLPM) 将人与人之间的方差与人内的方差来源分开。

方法：该研究使用了来自德国老龄化调查 (DEAS) 的 40 岁以上成年人的代表性样本。为了检验时间滞后对预测路径强度的影响，我们对滞后 3 年和 6 年进行了分析。

结果：结果表明，在个人内部水平上，自回归和交叉滞后路径显着，滞后长度为 3 年，而不是 6 年。

结论：可以得出结论，在间隔时间短于 6 年的变量之间存在互惠关系。然而，变量中稳定的类特征成分解释了它们之间的大部分协方差。建议包括除了短期和以症状为中心的干预措施外，更多地关注有助于两个变量在时间和情况下保持稳定性的因素。