The Gerontologist Vol. 48, No. 3, 300–310 Copyright 2008 by The Gerontological Society of America More Than Just a Communication Medium: What Older Adults Say About Television and Depression Giang T. Nguyen, MD, MPH, MSCE,1,2,3,4 Marsha N. Wittink, MD, MBE,1 Genevra F. Murray, PhDc,5 and Frances K. Barg, PhD, MEd1,4,5 Purpose: Older adults watch more television than younger people do. Television’s role in mental health has been described in the general population, but less is known about how older adults think of television in the context of depression. Design and Methods: Using a semistructured interview created to help clinicians understand how older adults conceptualize depression diagnosis and treatment, we conducted a qualitative study of 102 patients aged 65 years or older. We recruited them from primary care offices and interviewed them in their homes. During our analysis, we found that many respondents offered spontaneous thoughts about the relationship between television and depression. We extracted all television-related content from the interview transcripts and identified themes by using grounded theory. Results: Participants cited television as a way to identify depression in themselves or others The Spectrum I and II studies were supported by Grants MH6221001, MH62210-01S1, and MH67077 from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Dr. Nguyen was supported by a Pfizer Fellowship in Health Literacy/Clear Health Communication, an American Cancer Society Cancer Control Career Development Award (CCCDA-05-16101), and an institutional training grant from the Bureau of Health Professions (D55-HP-05164-01). Dr. Wittink was supported by a career development award from NIMH (5K23MH073658-02). We thank Jerene Good, Julia Switzer, Britt Dahlberg, and Grace Kim Lee for data management, statistical support, and editorial assistance. Special thanks to the patients who generously gave their time to share their experiences with the Spectrum Study Team. Finally, we thank Joseph Gallo, Marjorie Bowman, and the anonymous reviewers of this journal, whose insightful recommendations helped to shape the final version of this manuscript. Address correspondence to Giang T. Nguyen, MD, MPH, MSCE, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, The University of Pennsylvania, 3400 Spruce Street, 2 Gates Building, Philadelphia, PA 19104. E-mail: nguyeng@uphs.upenn.edu 1 Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 2 Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 3 EPIC Center of Excellence in Cancer Communication Research, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 4 Center for Public Health Initiatives, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 5 Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 300 (either through overuse or lack of interest) or as a way to cope with depressive symptoms. Some felt that television could be harmful, particularly when content was high in negativity. A substantial number of participants discussed more than one of these themes, and a few mentioned all three. Married people were more likely to discuss television’s role in identifying depression. Participants with low education more often mentioned that television could be helpful, whereas those with a history of depression treatment were more likely to discuss television’s potential harm. Implications: Researchers should conduct further studies to help them better understand the relationship among depression, television viewing, and individual viewpoints concerning television’s role in geriatric depression. An exploration of these issues may yield new approaches to help clinicians address depression in late life. Key Words: Aged, Depression, Media, Mental health, Primary health care, Television Television viewing is ubiquitous in contemporary American society. For older adults in particular, television is a central aspect of everyday life. Older adults watch more television than college students do (Mundorf & Brownell, 1990), and older seniors watch more than younger seniors do (Grajczyk & Zollner, 1998). An estimated 89% of older adults watch television daily, with 64% of these watching over 3 hours daily (Schreiber & Boyd, 1980). As adults grow older, they are less likely to continue such activities as going to the theater, traveling, and attending spectator sports, but watching the television remains important (Strain, Grabusic, Searle, & Dunn, 2002). Indeed, watching television occupies most of the leisure time for adults aged 70 to 105 years (Horgas, Wilms, & Baltes, 1998). From a health care perspective, television usually is thought of as The Gerontologist a communication medium and an information source (Connell & Crawford, 1988). However, television plays other roles in depression as well. Depression is common in late life and is often associated with disability and poor quality of life (Unutzer, Bruce, & NIMH Affective Disorders Workgroup, 2002). Although depressive symptoms may affect 15% of community-dwelling elderly patients (Mulsant & Ganguli, 1999), depression may present differently among older adults than among younger adults (Lebowitz et al., 1997). For example, it may appear more frequently in elderly persons as agitation, hypochondriasis, or dementia syndrome of depression (Moore & Jefferson, 2004), and it may often appear without complaints of sadness (Gallo & Rabins, 1999). Much of the literature on mental health and television has focused on children (Kirkcaldy, Siefen, Urkin, & Merrick, 2006; Singer, Slovak, Frierson, & York, 1998) and college students (Anderson, Collins, Schmitt, & Jacobvitz, 1996). For example, maternal depression has been associated with increased television viewing among children (Burdette, Whitaker, Kahn, & Harvey-Berino, 2003). Among adults aged 25 to 33 years, the CARDIA Study identified a link between heavy television viewing and depression (Sidney et al., 1996). Although viewing itself may be increased with depression, ability to concentrate while watching television may decrease, perhaps as a result of ‘‘mind wandering’’ (Watts & Sharrock, 1985). Among adults, TV viewing can serve as a means of escape from depressive moods or as a calming device for anxiety. However, the nature of the effect seems dependent on the type of program viewed. For example, television viewing can help depressed moods when content is positive, but watching the news can exacerbate depressed moods (Potts & Sanchez, 1994). Mood management theory suggests that people experiencing stress use television to block anxious thoughts and to replace dysphoric moods. For example, in one study of adult voters (mean age 45 years), participants were asked to estimate typical daily television viewing for each day of the week. Investigators found that women with more stressful life events in the past year (using the Life Events Inventory) were more likely to exhibit addiction-like behavior (measured by the TV Addiction Scale). A related study cited in the same article found that stressful family life events were associated with increased comedy and decreased news in the viewing diet (as recorded in viewing diaries). Furthermore, stressed women watched more game and variety programming as well as more overall television. Stressed men watched more action and violent programming (Anderson, Collins, Schmitt, & Jacobvitz, 1996). At the same time, television has been described as a vehicle for patient education; for example, cancer patients experience less anxiety if they watch an educational video prior to the initiation of chemotherVol. 48, No. 3, 2008 301 apy or radiotherapy (Thomas, Daly, Perryman, & Stockton, 2000). Moreover, television can be used to disseminate public health messages about depression and to influence attitudes about depression and its treatment (Paykel, Hart, & Priest, 1998). Television is an important medium for the delivery of direct-toconsumer advertising for antidepressants; pharmaceutical companies rationalize direct-to-consumer advertising for this purpose on the grounds that it provides important patient education (Frosch, Krueger, Hornik, Cronholm, & Barg, 2007). Finally, television has been used for telepsychiatric care, with improved follow-up noted among depressed or schizophrenic patients receiving counseling via interactive television (Zaylor, 1999). Among elderly individuals, previous studies have looked at how older adults respond to various portrayals of older people on television. The idea of downward comparison suggests that seeing others who are worse off may give viewers a comparative feeling of being better off. For example, one study found that older persons who were lonely showed greater interest in viewing negative rather than positive portrayals (vice versa for participants who were not lonely). In addition, lonely older people felt better after viewing negative portrayals than after viewing positive portrayals (Mares & Cantor, 1992). The role of television in geriatric depression has not been described extensively in the medical literature. A recent Ovid Medline search for the key words television/TV, depression/depressed, and aged/aging/elderly yielded 52 articles, and a review of the titles and abstracts produced only 9 articles that truly addressed television use among older adults in the context of depression. Among these articles, some studies simply included television use among potential predictors of depression (Chen et al., 2005; Kivela, 1995; Kleinke, 1988; Koenig et al., 1997; Stessman et al., 1996). The remaining articles dealt with television in the context of seeing or hearing problems among elderly persons (Lopez-Torres Hidalgo et al., 1995), television as a vehicle for public health messages (Kerkhof, Visser, Diekstra, & Hirschhorn, 1991; Thomas, Deary, Kaminski, Stockton, & De Zueew, 1999), and television as a part of daily life for retirees (Jackson, Kart, Wagner, & Rowe, 1985). In this article, we discuss themes expressed by older adults related to television viewing in the context of talking about geriatric depression (the Spectrum study). Although approximately half of the participants were depressed according to a self-rating and a physician rating, all were told that the interview would address aging and mental health. Our report differs from other work on geriatric depression and television because it seeks to provide an understanding of the relationship between television and depression from the perspective of older adults. Unlike purely quantitative research, our design incorporated methods based in grounded theory so that the ‘‘emic,’’ or insider, perspective could be recognized. Rather than imposing the investigators’ notions of depression and television viewing upon the participants, we allowed participants to share their own views of how to define this relationship. Methods We used open-ended interview data from the Spectrum study, a mixed-methods study designed to help researchers understand the sociocultural experience of depression among older adults. This study and two quantitative predecessors have been described in other published work (Barg et al., 2006; Bogner et al., 2004; Gallo et al., 2005; Wittink, Barg, & Gallo, 2006). At the end of this article, we have supplied an appendix describing sampling and procedural issues in detail. Briefly, we used transcripts of interviews with 102 adults aged 65 years or older, whom we recruited from primary care offices. The interviews were designed to elicit participants’ explanatory model for depression, including where they thought depression came from, their perception of depression symptoms, their ideas about treatment, and their notions about the seriousness of depression (Wittink, Barg, & Gallo, 2006). We obtained signed consent to record prior to the initiation of the interviews. Television was mentioned in some of the openended questions (details provided in the appendix). However, we purposely did not ask directly about television use or any other specific activity, preferring instead to see what prominent features of participants’ social lives would emerge on their own. When participants brought up activities that were important to them (such as television), we asked follow-up questions to elicit further detail. grounded theory methodology of Glaser and Strauss (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), this strategy involves taking one piece of data (e.g., discussion about television) and comparing it with all others that may be similar or different in order to develop conceptualizations of the possible relations among various pieces of data. Once we identified themes, we organized them into larger categories when common features were present. Finally, we reviewed individual coded text units again to confirm the accuracy of coding. Participant Characteristics In addition to the qualitative (textual) data, we also recorded the following personal characteristics: age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, living arrangement (alone or with others), education, physician rating or self-rating of depression, and depression treatment history (counseling, mental health referral, antidepressant prescription). Furthermore, we assessed symptoms of depression, anxiety, and hopelessness by using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression (CES-D) scale (Radloff, 1977), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (Steer, Willman, Kay, & Beck, 1994), and the Beck Hopelessness Scale (Beck, Brown, Berchick, Stewart, & Steer, 1990). We measured cognition by using several tests: the MiniMental State Examination (Folstein, Folstein, & McHugh, 1975), the FAS verbal fluency score (Troyer, 2000), and the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (Hogervorst et al., 2002). We assessed functioning status with the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (Ware & Sherbourne, 1992). To minimize effects on interview responses, we administered these formal instruments after the openended interviews. Quantitative Comparisons Identification of Text Related to Television We managed the transcript data by using QSR N6 qualitative analysis software. We used the textsearch function in N6 to identify all instances in which the following words or their plurals were mentioned: TV, television, program, and show. We excluded text if the mentions were limited to side comments with no subsequent discussion by study respondents or if the context did not pertain to television (e.g., mention of a drug-rehabilitation ‘‘program’’). Constant Comparative Method We assigned codes to the text that were derived through an iterative process with multiple transcript reviewers. We used the constant comparative method, moving iteratively between codes and text to derive themes related to depression and television (Boeije, 2002). Originally developed for use in the 302 We used t tests and chi-square tests to compare participants who discussed television or specific television-related themes with participants who did not (with regard to sociodemographics and measures of physical, cognitive, and psychological status). Although this research was formative rather than hypothesis testing, we chose to use these statistical tests to help identify relationships that potentially may be evaluated further in future research, and to serve as aids to inference and interpretation. For example, knowing some of the characteristics of individuals who endorse the theme that television viewing is therapeutic for depression may help us to design interventions targeting this subset of patients. We used a significance level of a = 0.05. Finally, we performed cross-tabulations to identify instances in which multiple themes were described within the same interview, allowing us to evaluate the breadth of viewpoints about television and depression on the individual level. The Gerontologist Table 1. Sample Characteristics All Participants (n ¼ 102) Discussed TV (n ¼ 65) Did not Discuss TV (n ¼ 37) Sociodemographic characteristics Age in years: M (SD) Women: % African American: % Education less than high school: % Married or with partner: % Live alone: % 78.3 (6.5) 74 46 37 44 38 77.8 (6.8) 71 45 40 48 32 79.2 (5.8) 78 49 32 38 49 Psychological status Self-identifies as ever depressed: % CES-D score: M (SD) BAI score: M (SD) BHS score: M (SD) 52 9.5 (3.7) 6.2 (6.3) 4.1 (3.3) 59 9.1 (7.0) 6.6 (6.6) 3.8 (3.0) 41 10.1 (9.2) 5.5 (5.7) 4.6 (3.8) Cognitive status MMSE score: M (SD) FAS score: M (SD) HVLT score: M (SD) 26.3 (3.9) 26.9 (12.0) 17.8 (8.0) 26.2 (4.3) 27.4 (12.3) 17.9 (8.5) 26.6 (3.2) 26.2 (11.6) 17.5 (7.2) Physical health, SF-36: M (SD) Physical function score Role physical score Role emotional score 55.3 (30.9) 62.8 (40.4) 84.0 (33.4) 57.3 (30.1) 65.4 (39.9) 83.6 (33.9) 51.8 (32.2) 58.1 (41.3) 84.7 (33.0) 48 38 12 28 52 43 12 31 39 28 11 22 Characteristic Primary care physician ratings at index visit: % Physician rates patient as depressed Depression counseling in past 6 months Mental health referral in past 6 months Prescribed antidepressant in past 6 months Note: Our t tests and chi-square tests revealed no statistically significant differences between respondents who discussed television and those who did not. CES-D = Center for Epidemiology and Statistics–Depression scale; BAI = Beck Anxiety Index; BHS = Beck Hopelessness Scale; MMSE = Mini-Mental Status Examination ; FAS = a verbal fluency test; HVLT = Hopkins Verbal Learning Test; SF-36 = Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short-Form Health Survey. Results Sample Characteristics A total of 102 interviews were completed, in which television was explicitly discussed by 65 participants (64%). Table 1 includes demographic characteristics of the full sample as well as those of respondents who did or did not discuss television. Interviews lasted approximately 3 hours and covered participants’ perceptions about aging, depression, and physical problems. of 16 or higher are more suggestive of depression (Heikkinen & Kauppinen, 2004), we emphasize that psychometric measures and physician assessments are used not to judge the truth of an individual’s comments but to elaborate the dynamics of depression in any given older adult’s lifeworld; they are used to highlight what different assessments, quantitative and qualitative, capture and miss with regard to depression in older adults. ‘‘That’s How I Knew’’ Themes That Emerged Related to Television The participants described television within a number of broad categories: (a) ‘‘That’s how I knew’’ (television helps identify depression); (b) ‘‘I turn the TV on . . . and I’m OK’’ (television is useful in coping with depression); and (c) ‘‘Watch TV. . . you will go crazy’’ (television can have a harmful impact in depression). To provide context for the quotations presented in this article, we indicate CES-D scores and the presence or absence of selfrated and physician-rated depression after them (e.g., CES-D = 21; self, þ, MD, –). Although CES-D scores Vol. 48, No. 3, 2008 303 There were 21 participants who mentioned the idea that television was a tool for identifying depression, either from observing a loved one or from introspection about one’s own viewing behavior. For example, increased television viewing, particularly to the exclusion of other activities, was a frequently mentioned characteristic of depression. One 77-yearold widowed White woman highlighted just such an exclusive engagement with television as ‘‘how she knew’’ her friend was depressed: [She] would come home from work, flop on her bed and watch TV. Just never cooked—get food on her way home from work. She never cooked. She had a lovely townhouse in [name]. She didn’t take care of her house. She didn’t cook. She didn’t entertain at all. That’s the way I saw her as—that’s how I knew she was depressed. (CES-D = 22; self, þ, MD, þ) For this woman, it was her ability to contrast her friend’s current, exclusive television watching to a prior, more active lifestyle that made her certain the problem was depression. Although for this respondent the television viewing was a marker of depression in others, for a number of participants this activity was an important component of their own personal experience of depression. For one 69year-old divorced African American woman, this amounted to a reduction of engagement (‘‘no interest’’; ‘‘no energy’’), in which viewing the television remained as the sole interest and activity in her life: ‘‘sometime I don’t feel like doing anything, just looking at TV’’ [(CES-D = 41; self, –, MD, þ). Another respondent, a 68-year-old married White man, described the same sort of exclusive television viewing as indicative of depression but with the key addition of immobility and inertia as also linked to his experience of television and depression. When he was asked a question about how he thought depression affected his health, he gave this answer: ‘‘I remember, it was kind of strange, I—I would get up in the morning and—this was after I had retired—and I went to get dressed and I would go downstairs and sit in front of the TV set. And the shades would be drawn in the room from the night before and it would be sun shining outside and I would say to myself, ‘Sunshine usually helps my disposition.’ But I couldn’t get the energy to get up and raise that shade and I’d sit there and watch TV.’’ (CES-D = 28; self, þ, MD, þ) Respondents also noted that their personal reactions to television changed during depressive episodes. In some cases, this was characterized as a shift to surface engagement with television viewing marked by a failure to fully engage, as was the case with one 75-year-old married African American woman: ‘‘Well it got so I’d look at TV, I was just looking, looking through the TV’’ (CES-D = 5; self, þ, MD, þ). Respondents linked this kind of shift with a state of drifting or distraction enabled by the presence of the television. This was the case with a 77-year-old married White woman who found that, while depressed, . . . you get to the end of the story on the TV and you say ‘Now what was that about?’ because I think while the story’s going on your mind is going a mile a minute. (CES-D = 12; self, þ, MD, –) into racing thoughts, with the actual images and stories pictured on television passing over her, leaving no lasting impression whatsoever. But its valence was negative: you watch ‘‘that stupid television’’ and ‘‘half the time you don’t even know what’s going on.’’ Meanwhile, one 80-year-old married White woman used her awareness of her reaction to television to treat her depression in a wider sense: I found myself jutting my jaw out when I, something suspenseful was on the television. I thought ‘I gotta cut that out.’ So that helped; it helped me over the hump. (CES-D = 2; self, þ, MD, –) This woman’s bouts of depression had resulted in significant tooth problems, the result of holding too much ‘‘tension’’ in her mouth. In this case, by working on her localized, embodied response to television while she was depressed—the holding of physical tension in place of emotional tension—she was able to use this insight in concert with pharmaceutical treatment (use of valium) to ‘‘get over the hump’’ of depression. Finally, some respondents commented that a decrease in desire to watch television could also be a signal of depression. In the words of a 75-yearold married White female, ‘‘[During times of depression] television didn’t interest me’’ (CES-D = 9; self, þ, MD, þ). In most cases, respondents linked this reduction in desire with a greater compulsion to turn within oneself and cease engaging with the larger world. For example, when describing depressed people, the same respondent said this: [They don’t] care about their appearance, don’t want to talk, really don’t want any kind of company, the television irritates them, the telephone upsets them, seems like no matter how much you try to help them they don’t want your help. Even more powerfully, a 69-year-old widowed African American woman said this: [During depression] you just want to be in—no lights on, no TV, don’t want to listen to nothing; you want to close yourself off there for awhile. (CES-D = 6; self, þ, MD, þ) As she pointed out so vividly, refusal of television viewing could be part of the larger process of closing off and moving inward during depressive episodes. ‘‘I Turn the TV on . . . and I’m OK’’ Clearly, for this woman, television engagement while she was depressed was marked by a plunge 304 The most frequently mentioned theme (n = 37) was the concept that viewing television can help in coping with depression. For example, a number of participants with a reported history of depression spontaneously offered television viewing as a method The Gerontologist for handling depression. When asked questions such as, ‘‘What are you doing now for your depression?’’ several respondents listed television viewing as one of the activities that they found helpful for dealing with depression. For example, a 73-year-old married White woman said: ‘‘I read, I work puzzles, I watch TV, some good movie that’s romantic’’ (CESD = 0; self, þ, MD, þ). Others combined television viewing with other activities they found helpful. For instance, a 79-year-old married African American woman said, ‘‘I like to sew in my hand and I get it and sit in front of the television’’ (CES-D = 13; self, þ, MD, þ). Some respondents, such as this 83-year-old widowed African American man, even suggested television viewing among the sorts of activities they might advise a depressed friend to engage in: You should go out and mingle with people and read a book, look at TV or go to the movies or try to sit down and meditate and relax. (CES-D = 1; self, –, MD, –) By using the phrase ‘‘you take television,’’ this respondent almost appeared to equate television with a treatment, as one might speak when referring to ‘‘taking a medication.’’ Another respondent echoed the notion that television viewing can cause new emotional experiences: Instead of paying attention to yourself, you can watch an entertaining show on TV and laugh at different things. . .. Redd Foxx, Lucy and all that stuff and sometimes I’ll be laughing, tears coming— and I feel so good for doing that, you know? . . . I turn the TV on, and then I get a laugh and turn round and I’m OK. (CES-D = 22; self, þ, MD, –) For another respondent, a 69-year-old widowed African American woman, television viewing was equated with the uplifting power of music: Although respondents who listed television as a helpful activity did not always elaborate as to why television was helpful, those who did (or who were probed further by the interviewer to explain) discussed television viewing as a way to occupy the mind. A 73-year-old widowed White man responded to the question ‘‘What are you doing now for your depression?’’ in the following way: ‘‘A lot of times I might turn on the television and watch something.’’ When questioned further about how TV might help him he said, ‘‘I try to find something to occupy my mind; I’ll say it in that manner’’ (CES-D = 38; self, þ, MD, þ). Another respondent, a 77-year-old White woman, elaborated on this notion of television occupying the mind: Yeah, I use music or, you know, the television. That’s why I keep that television; it goes on in the morning and goes off at night. And the one in my bedroom is on now. So when I go upstairs and want to do something, I can get television. You’d be surprised how them things delight you. (CES-D = 18; self, –, MD, –) For this respondent, television (like music) could ‘‘delight’’ or entertain. In addition, she seemed to suggest that keeping the television on all day might be helpful in some way. For example, another respondent (an 81-year-old widowed African American woman) noted the importance of waking up to the television being on: [I like having] the TV looking at me when I wake up and I feel better, get up and wipe my face and I’m 100% better. (CES-D = 22; self, þ, MD, –) You get absorbed in what’s going on in the TV and you forget your own problems. . . . If I start feeling like that I either go lay down and take a nap or watch TV and get my mind off of what’s going on. (CES-D = 12; self, þ, MD, –) Many of the respondents, such as this 71-year-old married African American woman, talked about how viewing the television allowed them to forget their problems: ‘‘I watch TV and I forget all about those things’’ (CES-D = 14; self, –, MD, þ). They seemed to suggest that, because television can be so engaging, one stops focusing on oneself. One respondent, a 71-year-old widowed White woman, felt that TV allowed her to have emotions that she otherwise would not experience while depressed: [Y]ou forget everything and you watch television and you get happy, you get hungry, you get—you Vol. 48, No. 3, 2008 get many emotions when you take television and usually I take the news and have many emotions so I forget my problems. (CES-D = 32; self, þ, MD, þ) 305 For these respondents the notion of having the television waiting for them upstairs or in the morning when they wake up provided a comfort— something to look forward to or help them start the day. ‘‘Watch TV. . . You Will Go Crazy’’ Although more respondents stated that television viewing could help depression, a number of respondents spoke about its potential harms with respect to depression (n = 10). In particular, some respondents felt depression could be made worse by the ‘‘negativity’’ on television. For example, an 89-year-old divorced African American woman stated this quite simply: ‘‘Watch TV—Jerry Springer show—you will go crazy’’ (CES-D=17; self, –, MD,þ). For her, TV was immediately equated with one type of programming: a talk show. Another respondent, an 89-year-old White man, generalized about negative types of television programming that can exacerbate depression: ‘‘Depression can be worsened by watching stuff on TV that’s negative – there is so much stuff on that tube today that’s negative’’ (CES-D = 22; self, –, MD, þ). Other respondents were more specific about the types of programming that could be detrimental. For example, a 75-year-old married White woman said the following while deciding how she would classify television: You know, it’s so hard. . . because it’s what you’re watching on TV and if you’re watching Joan of Arcadia that’s great but if you’re watching the Republican Convention it’s not. I think for the most part [it depends on] what you see on television—the things that lift you up and the things that let you down—like the state of world today and Iraq and all those soldiers and all those Iraqi people being killed. (CES-D = 43; self, þ, MD, þ) Another participant, a 73-year-old White woman, noted that although she might turn to the radio, newspaper, or television to lift her spirits, sometimes the news would make her feel worse: ‘‘the news can be almost as depressing [as one’s own moods while depressed]’’ (CES-D = 0; self, þ, MD, þ). Furthermore, some respondents found that certain types of television programming were negative not only because of their negative content but because they might serve as a reminder of their own struggles. A 77-year-old married White woman said the following about watching the news on television: ‘‘And then you know what comes along, all that stuff on TV about the priests, the abuse and all and that really—I had that in my life with my father’’ (CES-D = 12; self, þ, MD, –). This woman often had extended depressive episodes in which she did not want to leave the house for weeks at a time. She felt rather disconnected and even enjoyed the interactions she would have with the occasional telemarketer. Respondent Characteristics and Themes We found no statistically significant differences between the 65 respondents who talked about television and the 37 who did not (see Table 1), though there was a higher percentage of people who self-identified as depressed who discussed television than there was of those who did not self-identify as depressed (72% vs 55%; p , .10). We did identify several significant differences between those mentioning specific themes and those who did not. ‘‘That’s How I Knew’’.—Respondents who were married or partnered were more likely than un306 married people to mention television’s role in identifying depression (31% vs 12% mentioned this theme; p , .05). ‘‘I Turn the TV on . . . and I’m OK’’.—Participants with lower education were more likely to mention that television was a way of coping with depression than were those who had graduated high school (50% vs 28%; p , .05). Although the information was not quite statistically significant, we also found that participants who had been counseled for depression in the past 6 months were somewhat more likely to discuss this theme than those who had not (47% vs 30%; p , .10), and those who had received antidepressant prescriptions in the past 6 months also were slightly more likely to discuss this theme (51% vs 32% among those not receiving prescriptions; p , .10). ‘‘Watch TV . . . You Will Go Crazy’’.—People who had received counseling or antidepressants in the past 6 months were more likely than those who had not to mention that television could be harmful for depression. Among those counseled for depression, 18% mentioned this theme (as opposed to 5% among those who had not received counseling; p , .05). Similarly, among respondents who had been prescribed antidepressants in the past 6 months, 25% discussed this theme (compared with 4% among those without such prescriptions; p , .01). In addition, though it is not statistically significant (p , .10), participants who self-identified as depressed were more likely to mention this theme (15%) than those who did not self-identify as depressed (4%). Concurrent Themes.—A number of participants mentioned more than one theme during the course of their interviews. The idea that television both can be helpful (‘‘I turn the TV on . . . and I’m OK’’) and harmful (‘‘Watch TV . . . you will go crazy’’) was described by six participants (9% of those who discussed television). Eight people (12%) mentioned that television viewing could be helpful for coping with depression as well as identifying depression (‘‘That’s how I knew’’). Six people concurrently discussed ‘‘That’s how I knew’’ and the theme of television viewing as something harmful in depression. Four individuals (6%) mentioned all three themes. Discussion Older adults in this study spoke at length about television despite its not being a main focus of the interview, suggesting the high degree of salience that the relationship between television viewing and depression holds for older adults. The Gerontologist Our participants’ characterization of television viewing as a way to forget one’s problems is consistent with previous findings that suggest that television viewing is used for mood elevation. Studies using functional MRI during television viewing have determined that humorous television programming can activate regions of the insular cortex and amygdala (Moran, Wig, Adams, Janata, & Kelley, 2004). Moreover, research in the pediatric literature suggests that television viewing can actually have analgesic effects for children receiving venipuncture (Bellieni et al., 2006). It is possible, in light of our findings, that television viewing can also help to reduce the emotional pain caused by depression in elderly persons, and further study in this area is warranted. We found that behavioral patterns related to television viewing are used as diagnostic clues by older people interacting with depressed loved ones, and they also are used by patients themselves to gauge their own state of mind. Respondents recognized tremendous increases in television viewing or great declines in interest in television during depression. Although this phenomenon has not been emphasized in descriptions of geriatric depression, it is plausible in light of the observation that other behaviors can manifest themselves on either extreme during depression (e.g., anorexia or hyperphagia, and insomnia or hypersomnia; Moore & Jefferson, 2004). This study has a number of limitations. The semistructured interview was not specifically designed to elicit many details about television’s relationship with depression, so the number of comments identified may represent the views of only those respondents who had the strongest feelings about the topic. However, by limiting the number of questions asking directly about television, we also provided more opportunity for respondents to speak from their own perspectives, and it is likely that themes identified in this fashion had the highest salience for this population. Although television was mentioned briefly by our interviewers, the overwhelming majority of comments about television were not made in the context of these portions of the interviews. It is, therefore, unlikely that participant remarks were highly influenced by the interviewers. We used significance testing to point us in new directions for future quantitative testing. For example, we found that married patients (as opposed to unmarried ones) were more likely to describe television in the context of identifying depressed patients. It might simply be the case that individuals who are married to depressed persons may have more opportunities to recognize changes in television-viewing habits that occur in conjunction with worsening depression. Furthermore, participants with lower education were more likely to mention television’s potential therapeutic role in depression. This may be a function of the observation that indiVol. 48, No. 3, 2008 307 viduals with lower education may watch more television than more highly educated persons (Kubey & Csikszentmihalyi, 1990) and may therefore think of it more positively. We noted that patients who have received depression counseling or prescriptions were more likely to mention that television viewing can be harmful, suggesting that older patients undergoing conventional treatment may be getting necessary care and therefore are less likely to look to other sources (such as television) to treat their symptoms. Alternatively, these patients’ more intensive exposure to the treatment process may lead them to hold a more negative opinion of modalities outside of this therapeutic paradigm. Because television is such a ubiquitous component of the lives of older adults, it is highly germane in their worldviews about depression. For older adults, particularly those with depression, television is so much more than just an information source. People learn about depression in an explicit manner from the programming content, but it appears that they also learn implicitly about depression through their own familiarity with the televisual experience. In this study, we expanded on existing expert theories by exploring the emic viewpoints of older adults’ lived experiences regarding television and depression. To our knowledge, no other published studies have addressed older adults’ perspectives on television and depression in late life. Previous studies used expert-derived (or etic) categories. Our study goes beyond this measure by gathering the experiences of daily life of older adults in order to understand the sociocultural context of depression; this provided us with a more textured and nuanced description of the different dimensions of the relationship between television and depression among older adults. Although our findings are too preliminary to justify broad changes in the standard of care for depressed older adults, this study does have implications for clinical practice. Providers caring for older adults should recognize cues from patients (such as spontaneous remarks about television) and consider asking further questions regarding depressive symptoms, particularly if patients report changes in their quantity of television viewing. Patient’s responses to such follow-up questions could be used to guide potential initiation or alterations in therapy. Additional qualitative work, with interviews focusing specifically on this issue, would be of value. Future quantitative studies should track television viewing in older adults and assess correlations between viewing and measures of depressive symptoms. In the present study, we have broadened the realm of questions and the range of ways in which scientists and clinicians can view depression in late life, and new questions arise. For example, do beliefs about television as depression treatment, social support, and information source vary by ethnicity, functional capacity, level of depression, or experience with television earlier in life? Do depressed older patients make decisions about their television programming in a different way than do nondepressed (or younger) patients? If a patient states that television viewing helps her depression, is this also the case when her depression level is evaluated longitudinally by use of traditional depression scales? For patients who feel that television viewing can be both helpful and harmful for depression, what circumstances influence this characterization? How does all of this relate to long-term outcomes and adherence to clinically proven depression treatment regimens? 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We used standard measures to assess depression, anxiety, hopelessness, daily functioning, cognition, medical conditions, and personality. Spectrum II was designed to give respondents an opportunity to express their views about depression and to integrate these views with results from the fixed-answer questions in Spectrum I. Study Sample We identified participants for Spectrum II (n = 102) from the pool of participants in Spectrum I who had agreed to be contacted and interviewed again. We used a purposive sampling strategy to select participants, based on demographics and test results Vol. 48, No. 3, 2008 309 from Spectrum I. Purposive sampling (as opposed to random sampling) is used frequently in qualitative research to achieve a specific purpose such as maximum heterogeneity or maximum homogeneity on a given attribute (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Rather than using random sampling in which each member of the population has an equal chance of being ‘‘chosen,’’ purposive sampling allows for the identification of a range of ideas, even if they come from a small proportion of the entire group. Attributes or criteria we used to guide sample selection included presence or absence of family history of depression, concordance and discordance between self-rating and physician rating of depression, men with good physical functioning, and those in the oldest age group. The selection of these particular attributes came from ongoing review of the data. In addition, we also purposively sampled to achieve equal numbers of White and African American participants. Interview Process Semistructured interviews were completed in each participant’s home and were recorded with participant consent; the information was transcribed and entered into QSR N6 software for coding and analysis (DiGregorio, 2003; Richards, 2002). Interviewing participants in their homes took the discussions out of a medical environment and into the context of their everyday lives. Seven professional interviewers previously trained in conducting telephone and in-person interviews were chosen for the study. Though the study design included no gender preference for interviewers, all interviews were all female. They underwent a 3-day training designed and conducted by the anthropologists on the study team before beginning interviews. Training focused on the craft of in-depth, semistructured interviewing, with an emphasis on the difference between structured interviews for surveys and semistructured, ethnographic interviewing. The primary aims of this training were to widen the notion of ‘‘data’’ to be elicited and recorded and develop deep rapport with interviewees. Interviewers practiced on one another and were taped and critiqued to hone their skills before commencing interviews. Monthly interviewer debriefings and review of transcripts provided further oversight of the interview process. At the completion of each interview, the interviewer dictated field notes containing her impressions of the conversation, descriptions of unusual circumstances, or comments on the environment in which the interview took place. The field notes became part of the interview transcript. Specific Mentions of Television in the Interviews The a priori design of the study included a ‘‘free-listing’’ exercise that mentioned television. At the beginning of the interview, participants were presented with a scenario and asked to list words they would use to describe what is wrong with a retired man who had stopped participating in all of his usual activities (including watching his favorite television shows). The first 64 respondents participated in this free-listing exercise. The study was designed such that, after about half of the interviews were complete, the free-listing portion of the interview would be replaced by a ‘‘pile-sorting’’ exercise whereby participants were asked to classify a list of activities (generated by the comments in the earlier interviews) as either helpful or not helpful. Because there was a large number of 310 participants who mentioned television’s therapeutic role in depression during the early interviews, television watching was included in this list of activities (which also included counseling, prayer, medication, and 16 other activities mentioned by the informants). Thus, 38 participants participated in the pile-sorting task. (The percentage who explicitly discussed television was the same regardless of whether participants were exposed to the free-listing or the pile-sorting exercise, at 64% and 63%, respectively. Many of the comments about the negative effects of television did, however, occur in the context of the pile-sorting activity.) The Gerontologist