The object of the present research is to validate a French version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). The version entitled “Échelle de dépression gériatrique” (EDG) was administered to a sample of 643 elderly Francophones from the provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec. The psychometric characteristics indicate that the EDG is a valid and reliable scale. The utility of the EDG as a screening measure for geriatric depression is discussed.
Psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory are questionable for elderly francophones. Consequently, the aim of this study is to assess the reliability and the validity of the French version of the BDI (Questionnaire de Dépression de Beck: Bourque & Beaudette, 1982) for this group. Six hundred and forty-three French-speaking elders from Quebec and New-Brunswick answered the BDI. The reliability coefficients showed satisfactory internal consistency (.85), split-half reliability (.76) and test-retest correlation (.74). A principal-components analysis yielded three factors (somatic complaints, negative view of the self, and helplessness) accounting for 46.9 per cent of the total variance. The choice of an optimal cut-off score and the use of the BDI with the elderly are also discussed in this study.
The present study examines the relationships between health status, medication usage and depression in a community sample of elderly francophones. The results reveal that the use of non-psychotherapeutic medication is significantly greater by subjects who are physically impaired and those who are depressed. In addition, physically impaired subjects use significantly more psychotherapeutic medication than those in good health, whereas there is no difference between depressed and non-depressed subjects. The results also show that women use more psychotherapeutic medication than men. Thus, health status and depression both account for the increased use of non-psychotherapeutic medication in the elderly. In addition, the greater use of psychotherapeutic medication by the physically impaired and the lack of difference in the use of psychotherapeutic medication between depressed and non-depressed may point to possible over prescription for the elderly.
Using the Kanizsa triangle in a free-inspection paradigm, Gellatly has shown that subjects report seeing an illusory triangle while apparently not phenomenally aware of the inducing areas. It is argued that Gellatly's procedure may induce response processes which camouflage early sensory processes. By forcing subjects to choose between two response alternatives, it was shown that when they could just perceive the illusory triangle, they could also correctly discriminate the shape of the inducing elements. Under the free-inspection procedure, the duration threshold for seeing the illusory triangle was about 9 ms while the threshold for discriminating the shape of the inducing elements was about 2 ms. A static representation of the dynamic procedure used by Gellatly has been derived, which shows a novel effect of contour completion across boundaries resulting in a ghostly white triangle.
Resume 1 Cette etude examine le rapport entre les sympt6mes psychiques et somatiques de la depression chez les personnes dont l'Stat de sante physique est bon ou deficient. Plus precisement, l'impact des items somatiques sur le score total du Questionnaire de depression de Beck (QDB) a ete evalue. Les enqueteurs ont administre a 318 sujets Ages de 65 ans et plus une mesure de sant£ physique et un questionnaire de depression. Les r&ultats revelent une relation entre l'6tat de sante physique et le degre de depression chez les personnes agees. Toutefois, l'elevation du score de depression, suivant une deterioration de l'etat de sante, est causee aussi bien par une augmentation de la moyenne des items somatiques que des items psychiques du QDB. Ces resultats confirment done la validite du QDB comme mesure de depistage de la depression chez des personnes agees.
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