Depression in nursing home residents and its correlation with meaning of family involvement and depression of family

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between depression in older nursing home residents and family caregivers’ (FCGs) depressive status and reasons for involvement with residents. Design: This study employed a cross-sectional design. Setting: Eight nursing homes in northern Taiwan. Participants: A total of 139 older resident–FCG pairs were recruited. Measurements: Depression was measured with the Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Form for nursing home residents and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-Short Form for family members. Depression and demographic data were collected with face-to-face interviews. The meaning ascribed to caregivers’ nursing home visits was calibrated using the Family Meaning of Nursing-Home Visits scale. Multiple logistic regression was used to understand the factors related to residents’ depressive symptoms. Results: Depressive symptoms were present in 58.3% of the nursing home residents (n = 81). Depressive status of family members (Chi-square = 1.46, p = 0.23) or family’s visiting frequency (Chi-square = 1.64, p = 0.44) did not differ between residents with or without depressive symptoms. Factors associated with an increased risk of residents having depressive symptoms were age, self-perceived health status, and having a caregiver motivated to visit to assuage their guilt. Conclusions: Visiting a family member to assuage their guilt was the only caregiver variable associated with depressive symptoms for nursing home residents. This finding suggests that developing interventions to improve personal relationships between nursing home residents and family members might facilitate the emotional support of caregivers and psychological support for older nursing home residents in Taiwan.

Associations of Mental Health Issues with Health Literacy and Vaccination Readiness against COVID-19 in Long-Term Care Facilities—A Cross-Sectional Analysis

“…Group activities and good social connection can help to alleviate depressive symptoms and thus improve mental health outcomes as well as health literacy in people in need of care according to individual possibilities in the setting of long-term care [ 7 ]. The involvement of family members and informal caregivers could also be a promising tool to reduce the severity of depressive episodes [ 40 ]. Family engagement as part of managing patients with mental illness seems to be useful in terms of improved compliance with medication and treatment plans as well [ 41 ].…”

The later-life depression in nursing homes compared with private households

“…Therefore, factors associated with depression might differ between nursing home residents and private households. Besides the above factors, older adults in nursing homes suffer a heavier lack of social support, negative life events, perceived inadequacy of care, and other care-related reasons, resulting in severe depression (Tiong et al, 2013;Wu et al, 2022).…”

“…A more recent study by Wu et al (2022) used Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Form 11 to measure the prevalence of later-life depression for eight nursing home residents in northern Taiwan through face-to-face interviews. Furthermore, it also used the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-Short 12 Form to measure family members' depression and the Family Meaning of Nursing-Home Visits scale to measure caregivers' nursing home visits to examine the relationship between family Involvement and family members' depression and later-life depression for nursing homes residents.…”

“…Before adapting to the new living situation in nursing homes, they experience stress and need adjustments (McCubbin and McCubbin, 1987;McCubbin, 1987). However, most of the included studies in the systematic review are correlational and cross-sectional research (Lu et al, 2022;Wang et al, 2021;Wu et al, 2022). Therefore, longitudinal studies are needed to understand the adoption process in nursing homes for older adults and identify factors that influence and affect their adoption.…”