Paper
Friday, July 23, 2004
Depression in Elderly Nursing Home Residents
Maureen Newman, PhD, RN, CS, Nursing, Nursing, Rhode Island College, Providence, RI, USA
| Learning Objective #1: Understand the relationship of Erikson's theory
to depression in the frail elderly |
| Learning Objective #2: Consider the potential for developing interventions based on Erikson's theory to intervene in depression or to preserve attained strengths |
Objective: To examine the relationship between psychosocial development and other variables implicated in the occurance of depressive symptomatology in a sample of elderly nursing home residents. Design: Correlational survey design. Variables: The dependent variable was depressive symptomatology. The independent variables, health perception and psychosocial development, while controlling for age, sex, and langth of stay. Population, Sample, Setting, Years: Of the long-term residents of four nursing centers operated by a small family-owned corporation, all who met inclusion criteria were invited to participate. Inclusion criteria were 1)age 65 or older, 2) without severe cognitive impairment, 3) not chronically mentally ill. 4) having sufficient stamina to respond to questioning without being unduly taxed, 5) not having experienced an acute illness in the previous two weeks. Data were collected over an eight month period. Methods: Fifty subjects were interviewed following consent procedures and screening to rule out severe dementia. Four instruments used were the Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE) for cognitive screening, the Geriatric Depression Sacel (GDSS) to measure depressive symptoatology, the health perception subscale of the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS), and the Modified Eriksonian Psychosocial State Inventory (MEPSI). Findings: A sample (n=47) of frail elderly had a mean age of 85.3 and a low incidence of depression on the GDS, with only 4 subjects scoring in the depressed range. Demographicvariables of age, sex, and length of stay were not signicicantly correlated with depression. Using hierarchical regression procedures, physical health explained 20 percent variance in depression scores. With psychosocial development added to the aquasion,, a total of 49 percent of the variance was explained. Implication: Strategies for maximizing psychosocial development in frail elderly nursing home residents may protect against depression in this population.
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Sigma Theta Tau International
July 22-24, 2004