Social relations and depressive symptomatology in a sample of community-dwelling French older adults

This study examined the association between social relations and mental health, specifically the relative contribution of social networks and social support to depressive symptomatology. The culturally unique representative sample consisted of 3,777 noninstitutionalized older persons living in southwestern France. The findings indicated that French older adults generally had more than 8 people in their networks, their networks consisted mostly of family members, and they felt understood by most of their network members. These older adults reported being satisfied with their social relations. Sociodemographic variables contribute (R(2) = .143) to depressive symptomatology, as did social network (incremented R(2) = .033) and social support (incremented R(2) = .09) variables. Sociodemographic, social network, and social support variables together increased the variance explained still further (incremented R(2) = .108). Results were consistent with similar analyses in the U.S. and indicated that social support variables account for more variance in depressive symptomatology than social network variables.