Background Pain and depression are common in old age but the reciprocal relationship between pain and depression has not been established in a single study. Moreover, few studies have addressed this issue in a primary care setting. The purposes of this study were to examine the reciprocal relationship between pain and depression and to identify whether social support, functional disability or social functioning mediated the link between pain and depression among Hong Kong Chinese elderly primary care patients. Method Subjects were 318 patients assessed by a trained assessor with MDS-HC at baseline and these subjects were randomly selected from attendants of three randomly selected elderly health centers in Hong Kong. These patients were re-assessed one year after baseline evaluation.
Results Multiple regression analyses revealed that pain at baseline significantly predicted depression at 12-month followup assessment when age, gender, martial status, education, and depression at baseline were adjusted for, but depression at baseline was not associated with pain at 12-months after baseline measure while controlling for age, gender, martial status, education, and pain at baseline. However, depression did predict the onset of pain. Moreover, social support, physical disability or social functioning did not mediate the impact of pain on depression. Conclusions These data suggest that pain is an important predictor of depression in elderly primary care patients. Therefore, aged care service practitioners must take this risk factor into consideration in their preventive intervention and treatment for psychological well-being.