Prevalence of Depression among Elderly and Evaluation of Interventional Counseling Session in Zagazig District -Egypt

Depression is one of the most prevalent disabling and costly health problem among elderly. This work aimed to study the problem of depression among the elderly through determining the magnitude of depression among them, classifying the diseased according to the severity of depression, exploring some personal risk factors related to depression and evaluation an applied interventional counseling session for the diseased. This study is composed of two stages; the first one was a cross sectional design in which multistage random sample was applied to Zagazig District where 290 subjects were included in this study. The applied questionnaire included questions about sociodemographic status, some associated risk factors for developing depression and also Geriatric Depression Scale was applied to detect depressed patients and classify them according to the severity of the disease. The second stage was an interventional one applied to depressed elderly who were subjected to a counseling session educating them about the importance of counselling, follow up and recalling knowledge about treatment. Obtaining results revealed that the percentage of depression was 46. 6 % and those with mild or moderate condition constitute 75.6%. Depression significantly increased with age, female (OR 2.56), not married (OR 4.47) and those having previous death event among the surrounding (OR 7.68). The severity increases among age group over 75 years and more (OR 4.52) and those of low socioeconomic condition (OR 8.8). The applied counseling session had a significant impact on recalling knowledge about the prescribed drugs (60.7%), how to manage the missed doses (71.4%), using drug correctly (75.0%) and recalling medication name (75.0 %) (p<0.05). In conclusion depression is an undiagnosed public health problem. It significantly increases with age, female sex, not married subjects, and those having history of death event in their relatives. Moreover the severity of depression increases with age and low socioeconomic condition. The applied intervention counseling session had a good effect on improving drug knowledge and probably the attitudes of the depressed patients. So increasing the role of geriatric medicine in primary health care system and introduction of counseling session at outpatient clinics to increase compliance to treatment are good recommendations from that work. [Naglaa M. Abdo, Shereen Eassa and Ahmad M. Abdalla. Prevalence of Depression among Elderly and Evaluation of Interventional Counseling Session in Zagazig District –Egypt. Journal of American Science 2011;7(6):739748].(ISSN: 1545-1003). http://www.americanscience.org.