High Prevalence of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms among Hospitalized Geriatric Medical Inpatients: A study from a Tertiary Level Hospital in Nepal

Abstract

ABSTRACT
 
 Introduction: 
 Depression and Anxiety symptoms are widely prevalent in the geriatric population and the prevalence is higher in those suffering from any kind of medical illness. Although the prevalence of anxiety and depression among elderly medical patients have been evaluated in a few studies from developed countries in Europe and the Americas, data from a developing country like Nepal is lacking. The main aim of our study was to estimate the burden of these psychiatric morbidities in our setting. 
 
 Materials and methods: 
 A cross sectional analytical study where 42 geriatric inpatients admitted to the Department of Internal Medicine of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital during the period from April 1st to May 20th 2009 were studied for the prevalence of depressive and anxiety symptoms using the Beck Depression Inventory and Beck Anxiety Inventory respectively. 23 healthy geriatric community dwellers from a senior citizen centre in Kathmandu were taken as the control group. Data was analyzed using SPSS 14.0.
 
 Results: 
 Significant anxiety symptoms were present in 76.1% (N=32) of the hospitalized geriatric patients and significant depressive symptoms in 57.1% (n=24) as compared to 21.7% (n=5) and 17.3% (n=4) of healthy community dwellers respectively. Between the hospitalized geriatric medical inpatients and elderly healthy community dwellers, there was statistically significant differences in anxiety scores (F=26.06, p<0.01) and depression scores (F=22.97, p<0.01) as measured by one way analysis of variance (ANOVA).
 
 Conclusion: 
 There is a very high prevalence of depressive and anxiety symptoms among hospitalized geriatric medical inpatients as compared to healthy community dwellers in Nepal. Presence of these psychiatric morbidities can further exacerbate the physical illness slowing down recovery and adversely affecting a wide range of outcomes. Such a high amount of psychiatric morbidity in this population needs to be addressed by appropriate mental health interventions

Psychiatric Disorders in Elderly Patients attending OPD of Tertiary Care Centre in Eastern region of Nepal

“…The minimum age was 60 years and maximum was 89 years. Our findings correspond to the findings of earlier study in Nepal, which shows that mean age of the patients was 69.4 ± 4.3 years 4 and to the finding of study of Pereira YDS et al in which 70% of the sample were of age group 60-69 years, with mean age of 65.8 ± 6.11 years. 5 Our finding is in accordance to study by Singh GP et al 6 which showed age group 60 -65 years had highest proportion (56.9%) followed by 66-70 years (19.34%).…”

“…9 A study conducted in TUTH in 2009 among 42 geriatric inpatients showed higher prevalence of anxiety symptoms (76.1%). 4 This significantly high prevalence was seen probably because the study population was the geriatric patients admitted with medical illness, which might be the stressor to them. Finding of our study is consistent with the finding of study done by Singh GP et al which showed Neurotic, stress related and somatoform disorders (15.47%) as second commonest illness.…”

Prevalence of depression among elderly people living in old age home in the capital city Kathmandu

“…5 Similarly another study from a tertiary level hospital in Nepal conducted among hospitalized geriatric medical inpatients concluded that 57.1% of hospitalized geriatric patient had depressive symptoms and 17.3% of healthy community dwelling had depression. 8 A study conducted on prevalence of depression among institutionalized elders in Colombo showed 56% of population had depression. 7 Study conducted on community dwelling areas of West Bengal showed 53.7% depression.…”

Pattern of Neuropsychiatric Illnesses in Geriatric Population: An Outpatient Study Report

“…Some of these studies are Epidemiological field surveys [2][3][4][5] , hospital based outpatient studies [6][7][8][9] as well as inpatient studies [10][11][12] . In the present decade there is resurgence of geropsychiatric study reports from Nepal [13][14][15] .…”