Self-perceived health with focus on determinants of depression in selected countries of Europe

Self-perceived health with focus on determinants of depression in selected countries of Europe Abstract The aim of this thesis is to describe and compare the proportions of people with depressive symptoms in 29 European countries based on the health survey EHIS 2014. The effect of age, sex and education determinants is examined while focusing on persons aged 65 years and over. Using the cluster analysis method, proportions of persons aged 15 years and over suffering from depressive symptoms with the proportion of persons aged 65 years and over with depressive symptoms are compared and so are the sex differences in depressive symptoms within the persons aged 65 years and over. The relationship between the determinant of education and the depressive symptoms of persons aged 65 years and over is shown by conditional formatting. Analyses indicate that there is an apparent increase in the occurrence of depressive symptoms in the elderly, and it is even more noticeable with women. The level of education is also reflected in the occurrence of depressive symptoms, nevertheless, this relationship is not as apparent in the selected countries as it is for the age and sex determinants. Keywords: self-perceived health, health determinants, depressive symptoms, EHIS