Observational studyJournal of preventive medicine and hygiene2026
Association between the condition of living alone and the presence of depressive symptoms in adults in Peru: an analysis of nationally representative survey data.
Observational study in Journal of preventive medicine and hygiene, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Depression is a major public health problem that affects quality of life, social functioning, and overall well-being. Among the social factors potentially related to depressive symptoms, living alone has gained increasing attention, although findings have been inconsistent across settings. In Peru, where household composition and social support dynamics may differ from those reported in other contexts, evidence on this association remains limited. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the association between living alone and depressive symptoms in Peruvian adults. Methods: This observational, cross-sectional, and analytical study used secondary data from the 2022 Demographic and Family Health Survey (ENDES), conducted in 30,087 Peruvian adults aged 18 years old and older. The dependent variable was the presence of moderate to severe depressive symptoms (yes/no), measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), while the independent variable was living alone (yes/no). Generalized linear models of the Poisson family and log link function, were used to estimate crude and adjusted prevalence ratios (PRs). The analyses were performed in Stata v18.0 with a significant level of 5%. Results: Moderate to severe depressive symptoms was identified in 7.9% of participants, while 7.5% lived in single-person households. In the crude analysis, living alone were associated with a higher probability of presenting depressive symptoms (PR: 1.60; 95% CI: 1.33-1.92; p < 0.001). However, after adjusting for confounding variables, the association ceased to be significant (aPR: 1.01; 95% CI: 0.82-1.24; p = 0.928). Conclusion: Unlike studies where living alone is associated with a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms, in the Peruvian context, no statistically significant association was observed in the adjusted analysis. This finding suggests that other social and cultural determinants may be associated with depressive symptoms among adults living alone in Peru. Understanding these differences is key to the design of mental health prevention and intervention strategies adapted to the specific characteristics of the population.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.