Depressive symptoms and self-rated health among Brazilian older adults: baseline data from the ELSI-Brazil study.

Objective: To investigate whether having a higher number of depressive symptoms is associated with negative self-rated health (SRH) even in the absence of illness.

Methods: This is a secondary analysis of baseline data from the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSI-Brazil), conducted in 2015-2016, using a national sample of 9,412 people aged 50 or over. SRH was dichotomized into poor or very poor and very good or excellent, good, or average.