Fatores de risco para depressão em idosos: uso da escala geriátrica de depressão

Abstract

Lifelong suffering physiological factors gradually decline, causing weakness in both physical, mental and social daily activities. The lifestyle adopted by each individual, is closely linked to quality of aging. Depression is classified within the Mood Disorders with multifactorial etiology of biological, psychological and social order, whose main symptoms are depressed mood, lack of pleasure and interest in most daily activities. The depression in the elderly, is in most cases considered secondary to other chronic diseases. Factors related to the onset of depression may be linked to the end of the career, illness, abandonment by family and even for drug therapy that can cause mood swings. Given the above the study aimed to identify elderly prone to depressive disorder. It is a descriptive and exploratory survey, conducted between the months of August to October 2014, being the subject of study 30 elderly aged 60-95 years, from the FHS of Araguaia Garden Bar Herons MT. Used as a method to apply semi-structured questionnaire covering socioeconomic and demographic aspects and risk factors for depression and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-30). The findings about the sociodemographic characteristics showed that 83% of seniors were aged between 60-75 years old, 70% are female, 43% had not completed primary education, 53% married, 80% are retired, 30% live with spouse 80% with family income between 1-3 minimum wages, 90% say they have religion. As the risk factors the data showed that 83% of seniors have a chronic disease, the most prevalent Arterial Hypertension with 73% of cases, 40% of seniors recently experienced the death of someone important, 33% have financial difficulty. As for the data of EGD-30, 63% of seniors do not have enough information to be considered biased for depressive disorder symptoms, 37% are suggestive of depression, 23% of these are women, followed by 13% of men. We conclude that the studied subjects had risk factors for depression in the elderly, even though some factors more pronounced than others, such as the presence of chronic diseases, occupational change recently, consequently followed financial problems of family abandonment which leads to isolation and sadness, but a general sampling of the use of EGD-30 seniors mostly 63% were not considered as potential antidepressants. The data draw attention to the need for action from health professionals in targeting preventive activities against FHS depression in the elderly, activities such as meetings, monthly festivities for relaxation and regular evaluation of the presence of these risk factors act to prevent the disease from worsening.