Protective Function of Resources Related to Life Events, Global Stress, and Depression in Older Adults

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Abstract
Older adults (1042) were interviewed twice with a 6 mo. interval. The direct, indirect and interactive relationships of resources, life events, global stress and depression were examined using multiple regression procedures to isolate the unique contributions of 6 hypothesized functions of resources: stronger resoures did not reduce undesirable events; stronger resources did reduce the degree to which one experienced global stress; stronger resources reduced depressive symptoms; strong resource persons had less global stress than weak resource persons at low levels of events, but this advantage disappeared as level of events increased (opposite of prediction): the traditional buffer hypothesis was not supported; the advantage of strong resource persons over weak resource persons held at all levels of events; strong resource persons had less change in depression than weak resource persons only at the higher levels of global stress. This form followed the buffer effect previously attributed to events.