Prevalence and risk factors of geriatric depression in Yuli, Taiwan

• Main Authors: Ching-Han Shao, 邵靖翰
• Other Authors: Pesus Chou
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/58976105818452620538

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 公共衛生研究所 === 92 === Objectives: Approach to the prevalence and risk factors of geriatric depression in Yuli, Hualien, thus as a database for the overall health care and mental health care of a community. Methods：This study was carried out by Yang-Ming Crusade, which was formed by trained medical school students of Yang-Ming University, case selection were from the domicile name lists, we survey the citizens in Yuli Town with the exclusion of those who are institutionalized, with age above (of) 65 years old and with fair cognitive function, those who can communicate with Mandarin or Taiwanese language. We made face-to-face house calls to 15 villages around Yuli Township. With a set of structured questionnaires we collected the data including common demographic variations (age, gender, marital status, educational background), life histories (solitude, tumble fear, former tumble, etc), past personal history of illness (hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease), and we also use the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Form (G.D.S.-S, 1991 Burke W.J. et al) to scale the depression (total scores □ 5 indicating a depressive state). Results: Totally there are 1,159 cases (705 males,60.8％；454 females, 39.2％)in this cohort, with most cases above 75 year-old（671 people,57.9％）. Among this population there are 186（20.3％）cases thought to be depressive by the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Form, (G.D.S.-S, 1991 Burke W.J. et al) . No prominent differences on the items of gender, age, and educational background. In the category of past personal history, cases formerly diagnosed with diabetes and cardiovascular diseases revealed a higher rate of depression as compared to those without these 2 diseases ( all P＜0.05). In the category of life histories, people lived in solitude and in fear of tumble have a higher rate to be depressive as compared to those who didn’t.。 Conclusion: Depression is a common phenomenon among old people in a community. Elderly with a history of diabetes or cardiovascular diseases, a state of current solitude, with a fear of tumble, are more prone to be victims of depression. It should be of great help to the care of mental health in old people when we strengthen the care of chronic illness, and also improve the environment and style of life.