Method
Subjects and Inclusion Criteria
Subjects were recruited in Monroe County, N.Y., from private practices and Universityaffiliated
clinics in internal medicine, geriatrics, and family medicine. As described
previously (11), all patients aged ≥65 years presenting for care on selected recruitment days
and capable of giving informed consent were eligible for study enrollment. After complete
description of the study, written informed consent was obtained using procedures approved
by the University of Rochester Research Subjects Review Board. For the present analyses,
only subjects without a diagnosis of current or partially remitted major depression at study
intake were included.
Procedures
Subjects underwent semistructured research interviews, conducted by trained raters, at study
intake. Measures were completed based on data obtained from these interviews and from
review of subjects’ primary care medical charts. Annual follow-up in-person research
interviews were conducted up to 4 years after study intake, with data collected from these
interviews supplemented by information obtained from interim 6-month contact via
telephone and annually-repeated medical chart review. Study recruitment was staggered
between 2001 and 2005, with annual follow-up interviews through 2006, and thus the
number of subjects eligible for the follow-up interviews decreased at each annual time point
(i.e., the number of subjects eligible for the 1-year follow-up interview was higher than that
for the 2-, 3-, and 4-year follow-up interviews). The study outcome was incident major
depression, while the other variables assessed were examined as putative risk indicators.