Socio-demographic Correlates of Depression Among Elderly Slum Dwellers of North India

Abstract

Background  

Ageing is an inevitable process which begins before birth and continues throughout the life. Though depression is the commonest psychiatric disorder in the elderly, it is commonly misdiagnosed and under treated. The objective of the current study is to know the socio-demographic correlates of depressive disorders amongst elderly.

Materials and Methods

A cross-sectional community based study was designed and conducted in an urban slum of Muzaffarnagar city, of North India, comprising of 403 elderly aged 60 years and above for a period of 6 months. First of all, the listing of elderly in the study area was done then study was started with the randomly selected name entered in list as the first one and thereafter every second elderly was interviewed alternatively with the help of predesigned proforma. The collected data was subjected to suitable statistical analysis.

Results

As the age advances the depressive disorders also increase. The prevalence of depressive disorders was found to be 9.4% and it has been observed to double with advancement of one decade of years in the age. It has been noted that there is statistically significant association between decadal age advancement and rise in number of cases of depression. No significant difference in the occurrence of depressive disorders among male and female elderly population has been found.

Conclusion

A holistic approach to underlying causes of problems of elderly should be undertaken. There is need of strengthening the existing “package” of services for elderly in various initiatives and programmes.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/nje.v4i1.10133

Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 2014;4 (1): 316-322