Prevalence of Depression among Old Age Persons with Reference to Gender, Locality and Marital Status

Abstract

Demographic changes occur all across the world. The global population of people aged 60 and more is expected to reach 1.2 billion by 2025. According to UNFPA forecasts, India had 90 million senior citizens in 2011, with that figure expected to climb to 173 million by 2026, with India housing one out of every six persons over the age of 65 by 2050. The main objective of the present research is to assess the level of depression regarding the gender, locality and marital status of geriatric patients. In the present study, a descriptive survey method was used in which independent variables selected, namely, gender, residential area and marital status of geriatric patients, whereas depression was taken as dependent variables. The total sample of 342 geriatric patients were selected, who visited psychiatry OPD. Geriatric Depression Scale has been tested and used extensively with older people. to know the significant difference between various pairs of patients, the independent sample’t’ test was used. Further, results displayed that old age female have higher depression than old age male. Urban patients have greater Geriatric depression than rural old age patients. The significant difference was exposed between married and unmarried old age patients with Geriatric Depression.