Depression, defense styles, and related factors of the elderly at Public Health Center 7 in Bangkok
Keywords:
Defense styles, depression, elderlyAbstract
Background: Depression is a common mental health problem among the elderly. The elderly are often faced with degeneration from the aging process and life crises. If they have limited capacities for adaptation or use inappropriate defensive styles that would lead to depression in the elderly.
Objectives: The study aimed to explore the prevalence of depression, defense styles, and related factors among the elderly in the senior club at Public Health Center 7 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Methods: Data were consecutively collected from 129 elderlies in the senior club at Public Health Center 7 in Bangkok. They were asked to complete the set of questionnaires, including; The defense styles questionnaire-60 (DSQ-60), the Thai geriatric depression scale (TGDS-30), the social activities participation of the elder, and the 1-year life event questionnaire, and Chula activities of daily living index (Chula ADL Index).
Results: Depression was found in 9.3% of the subjects. The most frequently utilized defensive styles were adaptive defense mechanisms, especially, altruism. These adaptive defense mechanisms also had a negative correlation with depression. Male gender, history of psychiatric disease, moderate dependency level of the instrumental activity of daily living (IADL), moderate to a high level of stress in the economy, high-stress level on the social facet, frequent use of passive-aggression or reaction formation defensive styles, and rarely using of sublimation could statistically be associated with depression for these samples.
Conclusion: The one-tenth proportion of the elderly in this study had depression, which is comparable to the previous reports. Almost all of them used adaptive defense styles which also decreased the risk of depression. Recent results from the related factors and promoting adaptive defensive styles would be helpful for the prevention of depression in caring for the elderly at the senior club.
