Psychosocial Factors as Predictors of Geriatric Depression

Abstract

The present Study was conducted to explore the effects of gender, residence, nature of comorbidity and status of spouse on geriatric depression. Purposive sampling technique was followed to select 382 elderly people (210 elderly males and 172 elderly females) from Joypurhat and Rajshahi district. Bangla version (Rahman & et al., 2019) of Geriatric depression scale was used to measure depression of the respondents.  Four hypotheses were proposed based on previous research. Obtained data were analyzed by employing independent sample t-test and univariate regression analysis with the help of IBM SPSS- 28 version. The results of the current study revealed that there is a significant effect of residence, gender, status of spouse and nature of comorbidity on geriatric depression. The strongest probable socioeconomic factors of geriatric depression, in the elderly were identified using univariate regression analysis. The results suggested that gender was the best determinant of geriatric depression (23%, p< 0.05).