Lu, YanxiaNyunt, Ma Shwe ZinGwee, XinyiFeng, LiangFeng, LeiKua, Ee HeokKumar, RajeevNg, Tze Pin2015-12-092015-12-092044-6055http://hdl.handle.net/1885/38454OBJECTIVES To investigate whether life event stress was associated with greater psychological distress and poorer quality of life in older individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), in comparison with their counterparts without COPD. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. PARTICIPANTS A population-based sample (N=497) of individuals aged 65 and above with COPD (postbronchodilatation FEV1/FVC<0.70, N=136) and without COPD (N=277). MEASUREMENTS We measured life event stress, depressive symptoms (GDS, Geriatric Depression Scale), cognitive symptoms and function (CFQ, Cognitive Failures Questionnaire and MMSE, Mini-Mental State Examination), and physical and mental health functional status (SF36-PCS, Physical Health Component Summary and SF36-MCS, Mental Health Component Summary) in participants with and without COPD. RESULTS In two-way analysis of variance controlling for potential confounders, life event stress was associated with significant main effects of worse GDS (p<0.001), SF36-PCS (p=0.008) and SF36-MCS scores (p<0.001), and with significant interaction effects on GDS score (p<0.001), SF36-PCS (p=0.045) and SF36-MCS (p=0.034) in participants with COPD, more than in non-COPD participants. The main effect of COPD was found for postbronchodilator FEV1 (p<0.001) and cognitive symptoms (p=0.02). CONCLUSIONS Our findings indicate that life event stress was associated with more depressive symptoms and worse quality of life in individuals with COPD, much more than in those without COPD. Further studies should explore the role of cognitive appraisal of stress, coping resources and psycho-social support in this relationship.The study is supported by a research grant (No 03/1/21/17/214) from the Biomedical Research Council, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (ASTAR).This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode.Keywords: bronchodilating agent; aged; article; chronic obstructive lung disease; cognition; cohort analysis; cross-sectional study; distress syndrome; female; forced expiratory volume; forced vital capacity; Geriatric Depression Scale; human; life event; life stre2012-11-1910.1136/bmjopen-2012-0016742016-02-24