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Age moderates the associations between psychological distress and verbal fluency: N = 33,080

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Abstract

The relationship between psychological distress and verbal fluency remains underexplored and it remains unclear regarding how age may play a role in this association given that both verbal fluency and psychological distress change with age. The aim of the current brief report is to look at how age may moderate the association between psychological distress and verbal fluency. By analyzing data from 3,3080 participants with an age range from 15 to 101 using a hierarchical regression and three simple slope regressions from the United Kingdom, this brief report found age significantly moderates the association between psychological distress and verbal fluency performance with this association insignificant in young people, negative (b=-0.053, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. [-0.070, -0.037]) in middle-aged people, and strongly negative (b=-0.136, p < 0.001, 95% C.I. [-0.169, -0.103]) in older adults. These results provided novel findings regarding the role of age in the associations between psychological distress and verbal fluency.

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Data availability

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found at: https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. UK DRI Care Research and Technology Centre, Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, 926, Sir Michael Uren Hub, 86 Wood Lane, London, W12 0BZ, UK

    Weixi Kang

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  1. Weixi Kang
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Correspondence to Weixi Kang.

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Kang, W. Age moderates the associations between psychological distress and verbal fluency: N = 33,080. Curr Psychol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-05785-0

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