Investigation Of Elderly People's Depression In A Community In Shanghai

Objective:To investigate the depression incidence of the elderly people in community and try to discover the associated factors,as well as to provide related coping strategies to improve the life qualities of the aged.Method:Perform the inquiry with questionnaire including four sections as follows,the General Background Inventory,the Geriatric Depression Scale(GDS),Self-Rating Anxiety Scale(SAS) and Short form of 36(SF-36).During September to November in 2005,the elderly aged 60 to 89, from 4 communities in shi-men No.2 road through cluster sampling, were enrolled in the study,who could understand and answer all the questions,voluntarily.The inquiry was performed by doctors in the community,who were strictly trained before taking this job.Checks,corrections and amendments were also needed after the test.All data were carried in SPSS13.0 with statistic method such as Chi-square test,Logistic Regression and One-way ANOVA.Result:1731 elderly people finished the questionnaire.Among them,297(17.2%) had suffered depression,50(2.9%) people had anxiety and 46(2.7%) objectives had suffered from anxiety-depression. Particulars of the aged in communities:male 759(43.8%),female 972(56.2%);average age was 73.7±8.1;Marital status and living condition:70.1%married;29.9%unmarried,widowed or divorced; 9.9%single-lived,90.1%not single-lived;50.3%senior school or over graduated;58.9%mental labored before retirement;57.0%family expenses balanced,38.5%just balanced,but 4.4%unbalanced;Nearly 50%showed no interest in joining the community activities;Some aged people lacked of hobbies;Only a small number of aged people lacked of family support;Most aged people suffered from chronic disease,and only 11.3%was exceptional;Hypertension(49.9%),cardiac disease (26.5%)and diabetes(14.0%);91.5%of the elderly enjoyed Medicare provided by Shanghai government.Ten factors entered the depression regression equation as follows: the style of residence,ability of self-management,average income, Medicare,family expense,hobbies,community activities,family support,number of disease,self-estimation for diseases severity;while five factors were not related:sex,age,marital status,educational background,profession.Three factors entered the anxiety regression equation as follows: The style of residence,family finance,self-estimation of chronic diseases.The scores in all 8 sections of SF-36 decreased among the aged suffered from depression,which had statistical diference.Conclusion:1.Four aspects associated with the elderly depression were:living style and ability of self-management,family income,social character, chronic diseases.2.The incidence of depression was higher than that of anxiety.In most conditions,anxiety accompanied with depression.Three factors were related with anxiety:living alone,family expenses unbalanced and self-estimation for diseases severity.3.The life quality of the eldly with depression significantly decreased.