Mental Health Problems and Sociodemographic Correlates in Elderly Medical Inpatients in a University Hospital in Egypt

Abstract

Background. Depression and cognitive impairment are two common mental and public health problems especially among elderly. In this study, we determined the prevalence of these problems and their associations with sociodemographic factors among hospitalized elderly in Egypt. To achieve this, 200 elderly medical inpatients were included in this cross-sectional study. Methods. Comprehensive geriatric assessment was done for every participant. Sociodemographic variables were assessed by interviews with patients and their family members. Depressive symptoms were screened for by the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and the presence of depressive symptoms was defined as a GDS score of ≥6. Cognitive impairment was assessed by the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) Scale, and cognitive impairment was defined as a MMSE score of ≤23 out of a total score of 30. Results. The prevalence of both depressive symptoms and cognitive impairment was 72% and 30%, respectively. Significant associations were noticed between each of depressive symptoms and cognitive impairment, and low income and advancing age (P < 0.01), respectively. Other associations were insignificant. Conclusions. The findings of this study may be an alarm for health authorities and staffs involved in elderly care to increase their awareness of social and mental health problems among the elderly.

Relationship between Social Support, Loneliness, and Depression among Elderly People

“…Moreover, the current findings showed that there is a significant relation between depression level and associated illness among the elderly (Table 5); this results are in an agreement with previous studies that reported functional disabilities and chronic conditions were associated with depression (50,51) . However these results are incongruent with the previous researches reported that, all the demographic variables were found to be insignificant factors of aging depression, indicating that older people experience depression even when they are highly educated, have a better income, or have a high quality of life (52,53) .…”

Prevalence and Associated Factors of Depression among Admitted Adult Patients in Surgical and Medical Wards of Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

“…On the other hand, our finding is higher than those of studies done in Ethiopia 38% [ 25 ], Nigeria 45.3% [ 34 ], Iran 42.3% [ 21 ], Italy 21% [ 17 ], England 38% [ 35 ], Jamaica 33.3% [ 36 ], and Brazil 28% [ 37 ]. The variation in the above rates might be due to differences in the sample sizes, age of participants, types of study design, the use of various scales and rating for assessing the level of depression symptoms, methodologies, types of admission site, types of patients, and sociocultural contrasts between Ethiopia and other countries.…”

Depression among the elderly population in Sohag governorate

“… 7 , 25 Likewise, the investigated depression prevalence of elderly individuals attending the Zagazig University Hospital in Egypt was 72%. 26 Finally, a study done in Cairo by Al-Kholy et al exhibited that the estimated depression prevalence among elderly people visiting primary care clinics was 54.3%. 27…”