Depression Profile of the Elderly

Mental depression is one of the major health problems faced by the aged population today. It leads to decreased functioning, increased morbidity and mortality, increased health care utilization and institutionalization. Thus mental depression seriously affects the quality of life of elderly. Taking into account of these factors an attempt was made to study the prevalence of depression among the elderly population under the purview of the present research. The tool used was Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). The psychological status of the sample when studied by the Geriatric Depression Scale revealed that both male as well as female elderly were equally vulnerable to depression, although the percentage of depressed men (55.00%) was comparatively more than that of women. Though chi-square analysis failed to show any significant association between depression status and socio-economic variables there observed a significant association at five per cent level between depression profile and functional status, and a highly significant association (p<0.01) with nutritional status and performance of Homes.