Depression, anxiety and stress among elderly people living in selected old age homes in Dhaka and Gazipur, Bangladesh

Considering the fact of growing elderly population in Bangladesh and breaking of the cultural tradition of family taking care of the elder generation, institutionalization has become popular. This cross-sectional study was designed to evaluate the level of depression, anxiety and stress among the elderly people living in OAHs and impact of sociodemographic, anthropometric, clinical characteristics and satisfaction levels about the institutional facilities on their depression, anxiety, stress levels. Three old age homes were selected by purposive sampling- Probin Nibash (Agargaon), Priyojon Nibash (Darus Salam Road) and Old Rehabilitation Center (Gazipur). A total of 175 participants were selected from these institutions, who met inclusion criteria. They were interviewed face- to- face with a semi- structured questionnaire. DASS-21 was used to evaluate their level of depression, anxiety and stress level. SPSS version 26 was used for statistical analysis. Most prevalent age group was found to be 66-70 years with a mean age of 75.31{+/-}7.72. Female participants (52%) were more than male respondents (48%). Most of the participants was graduates (38.3%). Most of the participants (90.3%) were widowed with 1- 2 children (80%). Half of the participants (50.3%) had non- government jobs previously, whereas 40% were housewives. Regarding communication, 68% never communicate with their family and most of them (80.6%) had no one to take care at their homes. More than half of the respondents (58.3%) had chronic diseases like hypertension (16.67%), diabetes (47.06%), heart disease (7.84%) etc. Majority of the participants were satisfied with the facilities like food (61.14%), recreation (83.43%), medical care (80.0%), caregiver services (96.57%), safety (98.86%), physical exercise (93.43%), social activities within the institution (99.43%) and funeral system (83.43%) provided by the institutions. Among all the participants, 80.57% had mild to extreme severe level depression, 68% had anxiety and 70.29% had stress. Depression was found to be associated significantly with female gender, less communication with family, 1-5 years of staying at OAHs (p<0.001). Anxiety was significantly associated with female gender and less communication with family (p<0.05). Stress was significantly associated with less communication with family, and 1-5 years of staying at OAHs (p<0.001).