C-Reactive Protein and Specific Depression Symptoms Among Older Adults: An Exploratory Investigation of Multi-Plane Networks Using Cross-Sectional Data From NHANES (2017-2020).

Introduction: Studies investigating the association between C-reactive protein (CRP) and depression among older adults have yielded inconsistent results. We suspect that this may be due to varying associations between CRP and particular depression symptom criteria, and we addressed this challenge using network analysis.

Methods: We used cross-sectional data from prepandemic National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey questionnaires (2017-2020) and included a sample of 1698 adults aged 65 years or older.