IJCS | Volume 32, Nº4, July/August 2019

358 Table 2 - Absolute and relative frequency of sex, race, diabetes mellitus, smoking habit and physical activity level of elderly individuals (n = 197) according to depressive status (non-depressive vs depressive), Aiquara, Bahia, Brazil (2015) Non-depressive Depressive p value Sex Women 117 (59.4%) 19 (59.4%) 0.999 Men 80 (40.6%) 13 (40.6%) Race White 30 (15.8%) 2 (6.7%) 0.188 Others (pardo and black) 160 (84.2%) 28 (93.3%) Smoker No 166 (90.2%) 26 (86.7%) 0.553 Yes 18 (9.8%) 4 (13.3%) Diabetes mellitus No 160 (81.2%) 22 (68.8%) 0.105 Yes 37 (18.8%) 10 (31.3%) Physical activity level Sufficiently active (≥ 150 min/week) 109 (58.9%) 11 (36.7%) 0.023* Insufficiently active (< 150 min/week) 76 (41.1%) 19 (63.3%) (*) Statistically significant at p ≤ 0.05. Araújo et al. Depression and hypertension in elders Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2019;32(4):355-361 Original Article variables (sex, race, smoking habits, diabetes mellitus and physical activity) with hypertension. Since the variables DM, BMI, and physical activity level were associated with hypertension and depression, logistic regression analysis was performed, with and without adjustments for the cited variables. Table 3 shows the regression coefficient, and the odds ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence interval of the variables included in the adjusted and unadjusted logistic regression analysis. It is possible that the association between hypertension and depression was directly influenced by BMI, and physical activity level, while the analysis adjusted for all the variables (DM, BMI and physical activity level) together also confirmed the significant influence of these variables on the relationship between depression and hypertension in community-dwelling elders. Discussion The present study aimed to analyze the association between depression and hypertension in community- dwelling elders, and to analyze the influence of potential confounding variables. Our results showed that the association between depression and hypertension was significantly influenced by BMI, physical activity level and DM. In fact, no significant association was found between depression and hypertension (OR [95%CI] = 2.28 [0.98 - 5.32]; p = 0.06) when analyzed without adjustment variables. However, after adjustment for the variables BMI (OR [CI95%] = 2.66 [1.04 - 6.79], p = 0.04) and physical activity level (OR [CI95%] = 3.41 [1.31 - 8.85], p = 0.01) a significant association was found between depression and hypertension in the study population. The analysis adjusted for BMI, physical activity level and DM together also influenced significantly the association between depression and hypertension (OR [95%CI] = 3.08 [1.12 - 8.46]; p = 0.03). In our study, DM was significantly associated with hypertension, but not with depression, which may explain the lack of influence of the adjustment for DM on the association between hypertension and depression. Previous studies have shown that DM is common among depressed people; 16,17 in fact, in our study, 31.3% of depressed elderly people were diabetic, whereas this prevalence was only 18.8% among non-depressed elderly people. However, no significant difference was achieved. Despite this, the considerably higher prevalence of diabetic elderly among depressive and (statistically significant) hypertensive elders justifies the maintenance of this intervening variable (i.e., DM) in the regression model adjusted for DM, BMI and level of physical activity. The close association of obesity with depression 18,19 and hypertension 20,21 explains the strong influence of this variable on the relationship between depression