ArticleFrontiers in psychiatry2026
Chain mediating effect of somatic pain and sleep duration between chronic disease count and depressive symptoms in older adults.
Article in Frontiers in psychiatry, 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
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Population aging has intensified concerns regarding mental health in older adults. Multimorbidity is highly prevalent in late life and is strongly associated with both somatic pain and depressive symptoms. Somatic pain and abnormal sleep duration are common in older adults and may mediate the relationship between chronic disease burden and depression. However, the potential chain mediating roles of somatic pain and sleep duration between chronic disease count and depressive symptoms remain unclear. Aim: To examine whether somatic pain and sleep duration independently and sequentially mediate the association between chronic disease count and depressive symptoms in older adults. Methods: A total of 213 older adult patients who visited the First People's Hospital of Zunyi from March 2020 to March 2024 were selected as the research subjects. Data were collected using a general information questionnaire, the Chronic Disease Checklist, the Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ), and the 10-item Short-Form Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D-10). SPSS 26.0 and PROCESS 4.1 macro program were used for correlation analysis, regression analysis, and bootstrap mediation effect test. Results: The depression detection rate was 40.38%. Chronic disease count, sleep duration, somatic pain, and depressive symptoms were significantly correlated (all P < 0.01). After covariate adjustment, chronic disease count had a significant direct effect on depressive symptoms (β=0.164, 95% CI: 0.056-0.273). The independent mediating effects of somatic pain (effect=0.122, 95% CI: 0.057-0.187) and sleep duration (effect=0.054, 95% CI: 0.021-0.096), as well as the chain mediating effect of "somatic pain → sleep duration" (effect=0.018, 95% CI: 0.006-0.037), were all significant. The total indirect effect accounted for 54.17% of the total effect. Conclusion: Somatic pain and sleep duration independently and sequentially mediate the association between chronic disease count and depressive symptoms in older adults. Integrated strategies targeting multimorbidity control, pain management, and sleep regulation may help reduce depression risk. However, the chain-mediated effect was small in magnitude, suggesting that direct interventions targeting pain and sleep may offer more clinically meaningful benefits than long-chain approaches. Given the cross-sectional design, causal directions cannot be inferred.
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.