Prevalence of Depressive symptoms and its associated factors among elderly living in old age homes of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, Nepal

BackgroundDepressive symptoms have become a global public health problem, with a predominant effect on the elderly people. The studies on mental health status of elderly people in Nepal are quite limited. In this study, we aim to assess the prevalence of depressive symptoms and its associated factors among the elderly living in public old age homes of Kathmandu Metropolitan City in Nepal. MethodologyA cross-sectional study was conducted including 142 adults aged 60 years and above recruited through proportional simple random sampling from six old age homes. The 15 item-Geriatric Depression Scale(GDS) was used to assess the depressive symptoms among the participants. Associated factors were tested using Chi-square test; and a p-value of less than 0.05 with a confidence interval of 95% was used for statistical significance. ResultsMore than half of the study participants, 58.5% (95% CI: 49.9%-66.7%) were found to have depressive symptoms. Among them, 38.7% had mild symptoms, 16.2% had moderate symptoms and 3.5% had severe symptoms. Age (OR = 2.25, 95% CI: 1.08-4.66), sex (OR = 2.36, 95% CI: 1.17-4.75), past family type (OR = 0.44, 0.22-0.89), chronic physical health problem (OR = 0.34, 95% CI: 0.12-0.98) and feelings of loneliness were found to have significant association with depressive symptoms among the elderly population. ConclusionThe prevalence of depressive symptoms among the elderly in old age homes in Kathmandu Metropolitan City is quite high and a concerning issue that requires targeted mental health programs and interventions in order to bring about a positive shift in their mental health condition.