Assessing the psychological risk and protective factors for depression and cognitive decline in older adults: the Psychological History Questionnaire (PSYq)

Background: Recent evidence suggest that adverse life events, depression and anxiety experienced during the lifetime represent significant risk factors not only for the development of psychopathological conditions in older adults such as late-life depression (Richardson et al., 2023; Maier et al., 2021) but also for cognitive decline and dementia (Nilaweera et al., 2023; Dafsari and Jessen, 2020; Santabarbara et al., 2019). Furthermore, in line with that evidence, coping, emotion regulation strategies and social support have been recently suggested as possible proxy of a new reserve concept, i.e. the Affective Reserve (Di Rosa, 2024), which might represent a protective factor for the development of both depression and cognitive decline in older adults. However, those aspects are rarely investigated in a standardised way in both clinical practice and ageing research, also because of the lack of a dedicated instrument. Objective: The present study is aimed at filling this methodological gap by developing a new psychometric tool aimed at providing both clinicians and researchers the opportunity to assess psychological risk and protective factors for psychopathology and cognitive decline in a standardised way. Method: The Psychological History questionnaire (PSYq) has been developed based on the DSM criteria for depression and anxiety, and based on the literature concerning the assessment of adverse life events, coping, emotion regulation and social support. The PSYq comprises three sections: 1) Events: assessing the presence of adverse life events, such as financial and work difficulties, interpersonal loss and physical illness; 2) Health: assessing the presence of symptoms of depression and anxiety over the lifetime; 3) Resources: assessing coping strategies, emotional styles, and social support. One hundred older adults (age range 59-92; mean age 73.5, sd=7.2; 71 F) took part in the study. Participants were assessed with standard tests evaluating cognitive functions and response times (MoCA; TMT-A, TMT-B), current depressive symptoms (GDS) and state and trait anxiety (STAI-Y). Pearson correlations and linear regressions were conducted to evaluate the relationship between the PSYq scores and the standard questionnaires and test performance. Results: PSYq scores significantly correlate with standardised measures of current depression and anxiety (PSYq health & GDS: r=.39; PSYq health & STAI-2 r=.26; PSYq events & GDS: r= .24; PSY resources & GDS: r= -28; PSYq resources & STAI-1: r=-24; PSYq resources & STAI-2: r=-30). Moreover, scores at the PSYq-health (anxiety) significantly predict the performance at the memory index score of the MOCA test. Conclusion: Results suggest that the PSYq might represent a useful tool, able to obtain information about risk and protective factors for affective and cognitive health of older adults. Findings will be discussed suggesting potential application of this new psychometric tool in both clinical and research contexts.