PREVALENCE OF GERIATRIC DEPRESSION IN SOUTH INDIA A REVIEW

A review of the existing literature on prevalence of depression among elderly arising from India was carried out. Search engines such as PubMed, Google Scholar, and Google were utilized to identify the relevant studies conducted in southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra, and the union territories such as Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. Most of the literatures that are available are in terms of prevalence of depression than interventional studies. Community-based studies involving 70 to 1200 elderly subjects report prevalence rate varying from 9.3 % to 76 %. While clinic-based studies involving 54 to 525 participants report prevalence rates ranging from 25% to 72%. These studies have reported depression to be more common among females than males. Other demographic factors that have been associated with depression among elderly include being unmarried, divorced or widowed elderly, residing in rural locality, being illiterate, increasing age, lower socioeconomic status, and unemployment. Depression has also been shown to be associated with various psychosocial factors, lifestyle and dietary factors, and presence of chronic physical illness. The review of data suggests that prevalence of depression among elderly in South India is high. There is an urgent need to conduct large multicenter studies to fill this void in research.