Self-perceived and reported mental health in older adults

Abstract

Several studies assess mental health in older adults, but relatively few do so from a multi-informant perspective. In this work, discrepancies in self-perception and third-person perception of the mental health of older adults were analyzed in two age groups and differentiated by sex and place of residence. Relationships between different scales that measure psychopathology and psychosocial competencies were also analyzed. A sample of 288 older people aged between 60-95 years old (154 women, 53.47%) belonging to 12 municipalities in the Region of Murcia was employed, and the Older Adult Self-Report (OASR) questionnaire was used to measure the psychopathology of older people and the Older Adult Behavior Checklist (OABCL) instrument to find out the family's perception of these problems. Outcomes show different perceptions of mental health among older people and their families, which worsen with increasing age, psychosocial risk status and female gender. This reflects the need to develop specific treatment protocols for each gender and psychosocial risk situation, in order to address the differential mental health needs in older people. Son numerosos los trabajos que evalúan la salud mental de las personas mayores, pero relativamente escasos los que lo hacen desde una perspectiva multi-informante. En este trabajo se analizaron las discrepancias en la autopercepción y la percepción que tienen otros de la salud mental de las personas mayores, en dos franjas de edad, diferenciando por sexos, lugar de residencia y se analizaron las relaciones entre diferentes escalas que miden psicopatología y competencias psicosociales. Se empleó una muestra de 288 personas mayores entre 60-95 años (154 mujeres, 53.47%) pertenecientes a 12 municipios de la Región de Murcia, y se empleó el cuestionario OlderAdultSelf-Report (OASR) para medir la psicopatología de las personas mayores y el instrumentoOlderAdultBehaviorChecklist (OABCL) para conocer la percepción de la familia de estos problemas. Los resultados reflejan que existen diferentes percepciones de la salud mental entre personas mayores y sus familiares, que empeoran al aumentar la edad, la situación de riesgo psicosocial y el género femenino. Esto refleja la necesidad de desarrollar protocolos de tratamiento específicos para cada género y situación de riesgo psicosocial, con el fin de atender las necesidades diferenciales de salud mental de las personas mayores.

Life satisfaction, positive affect, depression and anxiety symptoms, and their relationship with sociodemographic, psychosocial, and clinical variables in a general elderly population sample from Chile

“…In the case of depression, in addition to satisfaction with health, economic wellbeing was the second most dominant predictor, for positive affect, it was household membership. These results confirm that perceived health, rather than the “objective” health condition, is ultimately the closest determinant of emotional wellbeing ( 45–47 ), and opens questions about the eventual mediating role it may play between the presence of physical illness and positive mental health ( 48 ).…”