A Comparative Study to Assess the Level of Depression among the Elderly Residing in Old Age Home and with the Family

A Comparative study was conducted to assess the level of depression among the elderly residing in old age home and with the family.

Depressive disorders are the most common affective illness found in old age. Depression is a mood disturbance characterized by exaggerated feelings to sadness despair, lowered self esteem, loss of interest in former activities and pessimistic thoughts. The incidence of increased depression among the elderly is influenced by the variables of physical illness, functional disability and cognitive impairment.

A non experimental comparative research design was adopted to carry out the present study. Probability simple random sampling by using lottery method technique was used to select 100 samples i.e. 50 elderly clients residing in old age home and 50 elderly clients staying with the family. Data was collected by means of a Standardized Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI) Scale which was divided into 2 sections which consisted socio-demographic variables and variables to assess the level of Depression.

The major findings indicated that the level of Depression among the elderly residing in old age home were severe to moderate and elderly residing with the family had mild to moderate level of depression, and there is no significant association between Depression, with selected demographic variables at 0.05 level of significance, except age in years of elderly residing in old age home.