Frequency and risk factors associated with depression in elderly visiting Primary Health Care (PHC) settings: Findings from the Cretan Aging Cohort

Journal of Affective Disorders Reports

Panagiotis Simos¹  Katerina Micheli²  Christina Krasanaki³  Katerina Koutra⁴  Symeon Panagiotakis⁵  Ioannis Zaganas⁵  Alexandros Vgontzas⁵  Maria Basta⁵  Christos Lionis⁶ 

[1] Corresponding author at: Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Heraklion, Voutes – Heraklion, Crete 71110, Greece.;Sleep Research and Treatment Center, Department of Psychiatry, Penn State University, Hershey, PA, USA;Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital of Heraklion, Crete, Greece;Department of Neurology, University Hospital of Heraklion, Crete, Greece;Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital of Heraklion, Crete, Greece;Department of Psychology, University of Crete, Rethymno, Crete, Greece;

关键词: Elderly;    Depression;    Underdiagnosis;    Frequency;    Risk factors;    Primary care;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Background: Depression is a frequent and serious disease often undiagnosed in elderly. We aimed to examine (1) the prevalence/correlates associated with depression and (2) the magnitude of depression underdiagnosis/related factors, in a large community-dwelling elderly population in Crete/Greece visiting Primary Health Care (PHC) settings. Methods: A sub-sample of 2428 non-demented individuals with Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE)>19 were recruited from a population-based cohort of 3140 elderly (>60 years). In phase I, all participants were assessed with a structured questionnaire including demographics, life-style, sleep, physical health and cognitive function. Diagnosis of depression was based on history/treatment of depression. In phase II, in a sub-sample of 293 participants, depression was diagnosed after a thorough extensive neuropsychiatric/neuropsychological evaluation. Results: In phase I, 10.8% reported a diagnosis/treatment of depression. In multivariate analysis, female gender, lack of physical activity, caregiver dependence and use of benzodiazepines were associated with depression. In phase II, depression was prevalent in 28.7% of our sample, whereas about 61% of those diagnosed with depression were undetected in phase I. Factors associated with non-detection of depression were sleep complaints/subjective short sleep, low MMSE and medical comorbidities. Two screening questions related to mood increased possibility to detect undiagnosed depression up to 90%. Limitations: Due to the cross-sectional design, causality between correlated factors cannot be examined. Conclusion: Prevalence of depression is high and largely underdiagnosed in elderly in Crete/Greece. Sleep and memory complaints appear to be surrogate markers of depression, whereas screening mood in PHC settings may significantly increase detection of depression in elders.

【 授权许可】

Unknown