Level of depression among elderly in selected old age homes at Mangalore, India

Aging means so many things to so many individuals; it can be viewed as incorporating aspects of the biologic, social, psychologic, functional and spiritual domains. Throughout a person’s life, various traumatic experiences, either physical or emotional, may actually weaken the individual ability to repair or maintain himself/herself. Role changes, major life events and co morbidity contribute to an increased rate of depression in the geriatric population. A descriptive study was conducted to evaluate the level of depression among the elderly people. For this study, Purposive sampling was applied & 50 subjects were interviewed in selected old age homes by using a Modified Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS -15). The collected data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. The study findings showed that the overall mean for the depression among elderly was 6.42 with the SD of 3.21 and 38% of the elderly were suffering from mild depression where as 10% with severe depression. There was a significant association between the levels of depression and selected demographic variables such as gender, marital status, education level, family type, reasons to join old age homes & duration of stay except for age and religion. Helping older adults adjust to limitations, while accentuating positive attributes, may aid older people in remaining independent and may perpetuate a high quality of life during later years. Therefore, there is need to develop and plan the individualistic intervention to decrease depression level among elderly. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jcmc.v5i1.12568