Prevalence and Predictors of Depression amongst Elderly

Objective: To determine prevalence of depression in elderly and identify predictors of depression in elderly. Patients & Methods: This cross‐sectional study was conducted at Holy Family Hospital Rawalpindi from October 2013 to December 2013 among elderly coming to outdoor patient department. Patients and their attendants of age 64 or above were included in the study. Two hundred and nine males and females were selected by consecutive sampling technique. Questionnaire included socio demographic profile and Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) containing characteristics like age, sex, income, education, marital relation, care giving, suicidal ideas, sleep, having children or not and financial support. Analysis was done by utilizing SPSS16. The results were recorded as frequencies. Chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test were applied to the data for calculation of association. p-value <.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: A sample of 209 males and females was studied and depression was found to be prevalent among 28.71%. There was no statistically significant relationship between education, intimacy, sleep, having children or not, financial support and depression (p-value > 0.05).The analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between gender, people ever diagnosed for depression in life, persons having suicidal ideas at least once in life, poor marital relationship, monthly income and care of elderly Conclusion: High prevalence of depression was found among elderly community and diversity exists in predicting factors.