BACKGROUND Many scales have been developed to assess depression, but they are often too lengthy to be of practical use in general practice consultations. AIM A study was undertaken to investigate the feasibility, reliability and diagnostic value of the geriatric depression scale and its shorter versions for screening in general practice. METHOD A total of 586 consecutive consulting patients...

BACKGROUND Depression in old age is an important public health problem causing considerable morbidity and disability worldwide. There is a dearth of community studies from India investigating geriatric depression and its associated risk factors. This study aimed to establish the nature, prevalence and factors associated with geriatric depression in a rural south Indian community. METHODS We r...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the validity and reliability of the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory in screening for anxiety in older inpatients post-stroke. DESIGN Longitudinal. SUBJECTS A total of 81 inpatients with stroke aged 65 years or older were recruited at four centres in England. MAIN MEASURES At phase 1 the Geriatric Anxiety Inventory and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale were ad...

This study explored the convergent and discriminant validity of the Geriatric Anxiety Scale (GAS), a new measure of anxiety symptoms for older adults. The GAS, Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Geriatric Anxiety Inventory (GAI), Beck Depression Inventory, Second Edition (BDI-II), and Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) were administered to 117 community-dwelling, predominantly White, older adults (62%...

Falls are the leading cause of unintentional injuries and injury-related disability, morbidity and mortality in the geriatric population. Therefore, they may also lower quality of life. The aim of this study was to analyze the fall risk factors in the community-dwelling elderly depending on their physical function, cognitive status and symptoms of depression. The study involved 304 individuals ...

This study assessed the degree to which anxiety and depression symptoms are associated with memory and executive functioning among community-dwelling older adults (N=120; M age=74.9 years, SD=7.2 years; 62% women). Participants completed the Geriatric Anxiety Scale, Geriatric Depression Scale, Comorbidity Index, California Verbal Learning Test, Second Edition (CVLT-II), and the Trail Making, Ve...

OBJECTIVE This research examined the psychometric properties of previously published short forms of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) in patients receiving palliative care. It also uses the full form of the GDS to examine the prevalence of nonsomatic symptoms of depression in palliative patients. METHOD Participants were 84 patients with advanced cancer attending palliative care outpatient...