A cross sectional study on prevalence of depression and its socio-demographic correlates among elderly in rural India

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 9.4% in 2017 which will rise to 19.1% in 2050. Elderly form a vulnerable group as they suffer from physical, psychological, economic, social and nutritional problems. These problems there by con-tribute to various disabilities. Prevalence of depression among elderly ranges from as low as 12.7% to as high as 60.0% 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 elderly. Material 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 7.2 Results: The Magnitude of Depression among elderly was found to be 57.66% (Mild Depression 23.91%, Moderate Depression 19.06% and Severe Depression 14.69%). The various factors associated with depression were, female sex, low Socio-economic status, and single/widowed/divorced, less physical activity, inadequate sleep and living alone. Conclusions: 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 elderly.

Socioeconomic and health-related inequalities in major depressive symptoms among older adults: a Wagstaff’s decomposition analysis of data from the LASI baseline survey, 2017–2018

“… 13 23 39 Therefore, insights from studies oriented in this direction can help in developing intervention tools and determining the inter-relationships that can help plan better policies and service delivery mechanisms, thus improving the quality of life of older adults. 40 Figure 1 represents the theoretical framework for the study. In this study, we aim to bridge the gap in the literature with the objective of finding the association between socioeconomic and health status and depression among older adults and explore the contributing factors in the inequalities in late-life depression.…”

“…In addition, studies on the association between socioeconomic and health status and inequality are scarce 13 23 39. Therefore, insights from studies oriented in this direction can help in developing intervention tools and determining the inter-relationships that can help plan better policies and service delivery mechanisms, thus improving the quality of life of older adults 40 Figure 1. represents the theoretical framework for the study.…”