A cross sectional study on prevalence of depression and its socio-demographic correlates among elderly in rural India
Journal Title: Indian Journal of Forensic and Community Medicine - Year 2018, Vol 5, Issue 4
Abstract
Introduction India is presently undergoing demographic transition leading significant increase in elderly population The advent of better health services and preventive care has raised life expectancy Presently the population of elderly in India is 94 in 2017 which will rise to 191 in 2050 Elderly form a vulnerable group as they suffer from physical psychological economic social and nutritional problems These problems there by contribute to various disabilities Prevalence of depression among elderly ranges from as low as 127 to as high as 600 from literature The depression among the elderly often goes undetected and thus untreated which results in loneliness social isolation cognitive impairment and decline in their ability to carry out the functional activities and thus compromises their quality of life Determining the burden of depression among the elderly and to study various sociodemographic factors will facilitate formulating policies to plan better health care delivery services for them Hence present study was planned with the objective to study the magnitude of depression and its socio demographic correlates among the elderlyMaterial and Methods Present study was a cross sectional study conducted in elderly 60 Years residing in the field practice area of Rural Health Training Centre of one of the Government Medical College Sample size calculated for the study was 290 and simple random sampling method was used for the data collection Measurement was done using WHO Geriatric Depression Scale GDS long form of 30 questions Ethical approval was obtained from institutional ethical committee and consent was taken from participants Data entry and analysis was done by using software Epi Info version 72Results The Magnitude of Depression among elderly was found to be 5766 Mild Depression 2391 Moderate Depression 1906 and Severe Depression 1469 The various factors associated with depression were female sex low Socioeconomic status and singlewidoweddivorced less physical activity inadequate sleep and living aloneConclusions The high prevalence of depression observed among the elderly population suggests there is need for improvement in policies and guidelines for early screening treatment and counselling of elderly for timely detection and treatment of depression at community level Formation of social groups at community level and more emphasis on improvement of quality of life of the elderlyKeywords Depression Elderly Factors affecting depression Geriatric depression scale 30
Authors and Affiliations
Ramesh D. Pawar, Kalpana M. Kale, Nandkeshav R Aswar, Shital Solanke
Keywords
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- EP ID EP486607
- DOI 10.18231/2394-6776.2018.0048
- Views 77
- Downloads 0
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