Depression and Cognitive Function of the Community-dwelling Elderly

Seong Ok Seo; Ae Young So

doi:10.12799/jkachn.2016.27.1.1

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Seo and So: Depression and Cognitive Function of the Community-dwelling Elderly

Original Article

Journal of Korean Academy of Community Health Nursing 2016; 27(1): 1-8.

Published online: 31 March 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12799/jkachn.2016.27.1.1

Depression and Cognitive Function of the Community-dwelling Elderly

Seong Ok Seo¹, Ae Young So²

¹Buseung Long-Term Care Institution, Wonju, Korea.

²Department of Nursing, Gangneung-Wonju National University, Wonju, Korea.

Corresponding author: So, Ae Young. Department of Nursing, Gangneung-Wonju National University, 150 Namwon-ro, Heung-up-myeon, Wonju 220-711, Korea. Tel: +82-33-760-8647, Fax: +82-33-760-8641, aeyoung@gwnu.ac.kr

Received 27 August 2015 Revised 8 January 2016 Accepted 4 March 2016

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine the depression and cognitive function of community-dwelling older adults.

Methods

243 aged over 65 in Won-Ju in South Korea participated in this study. Data were collected from April to June 2013 through interviews. This study utilized the Geriatric Depression Scale Short Form, the Korean version of MMSE-DS (MMSE for Dementia Screening), and infirmity testing for basic health status. Descriptive statistics, χ², t-test, ANOVA, Scheffé's test, and Pearson's correlation coefficient were used.

Results

75.3% of the participants belonged to the depression group, and the prevalence of cognitive impairment was 17.3%. There were significant differences in depression and cognitive function according to gender, educational level, type of insurance, subjective health, frailty, and whether to be a client of home care service. The level of depression was significantly higher and the level of cognitive functions was significantly lower in older adults in home care services than in community-dwelling older adults.

Conclusion

This study is meaningful in that it included older adults in home care services to provide information to develop effective prevention programs for improving cognitive functions. The results of this study can be used to develop future community prevention and intervention.

Keywords: Depression, Cognition, Function, Health status, Aged

Figures and Tables

Table 1

General Characteristics of Participants (N=243)

Characteristics	Categories	n (%) or M±SD
Gender	Male	57 (23.5)
Gender	Female	186 (76.5)
Age (year)	65~69	15 (6.2)
	70~74	55 (22.6)
	75~79	89 (36.6)
	≥80	84 (34.6)
Education	None	80 (32.9)
	Elementary school	101 (41.6)
	Middle school	37 (15.2)
	≥High school	25 (10.3)
Type of insurance	Medicaid	70 (28.8)
Type of insurance	Medical insurance	173 (71.2)
Number of chronic disease		2.06±1.10
Subjective health status	Very bad	25 (10.3)
	Bad	83 (34.2)
	Moderate	92 (37.9)
	Good	39 (16.0)
	Very good	4 (1.6)
frailty level	Health group	13 (5.3)
	High risk frailty older adults	142 (58.4)
	Frailty group	87 (35.8)
Home care services	Yes	120 (49.4)
Home care services	No	123 (50.6)

Table 2

Depression and Cognitive function of Participants (N=243)

Characteristics	Categories	n (%)
Depression	Normal	60 (24.7)
	Mild depression	88 (36.2)
	Severe depression	95 (39.1)
Cognitive function	Normal	201 (82.7)
Cognitive function	Cognitive impairment	42 (17.3)

Table 3

Depression according to General Characteristics (N=243)

Characteristics	Categories	M±SD	t or F (p)	Scheffé
Gender	Male	6.49±4.21	2.59 (.010)
Gender	Female	8.14±4.20	2.59 (.010)
Age (year)	65~69	6.07±5.19	1.86 (.136)
	70~74	7.40±4.42
	75~79	7.55±4.53
	≥80	8.50±3.54
Education	None^a	9.13±3.72	5.96 (.001)	a>b
	Elementary school^b	7.53±4.02
	Middle school	6.86±4.70
	≥High school	5.56±4.87
Type of insurance	Medicaid	9.80±3.42	5.50 (<.001)
Type of insurance	Medical insurance	6.92±4.29	5.50 (<.001)
Subjective health status	Very bad^a	11.64±3.71	36.28 (<.001)	a, b>c>d, e
	bad^b	9.81±3.26
	Moderate^c	6.90±3.50
	Good^d	3.58±3.22
	Very good^e	0.33±0.58
frailty level	Health group^a	2.23±2.35	56.41 (<.001)	a<b<c
	High risk frailty older adults^b	6.45±3.77
	frailty group^c	10.71±3.22
Home care services	Yes	9.67±3.48	7.74 (<.001)
Home care services	No	5.89±4.12	7.74 (<.001)

Table 4

Cognitive Function according to General Characteristics (N=243)

Characteristics	Categories	M±SD	t or F (p)	Scheffé
Gender	Male	24.75±3.29	-2.33 (.022)
Gender	Female	23.54±3.92	-2.33 (.022)
Age (year)	65~69^a	25.93±3.35	5.40 (.001)	a, b>c
	70~74^b	24.80±3.54
	75~79^c	23.91±3.72
	≥80	22.71±3.86
Education	None^a	21.38±3.22	32.73 (<.001)	a<b<c, d
	Elementary school^b	23.96±3.46
	Middle school^c	26.46±3.20
	≥High school^d	27.20±2.14
Type of insurance	Medicaid	23.03±3.91	-2.08 (.038)
Type of insurance	Medical insurance	24.14±3.73	-2.08 (.038)
Subjective health status	Very bad	22.64±4.04	5.05 (.001)	a<b
	bad^a	22.78±3.65
	Moderate	24.34±3.54
	Good^b	25.25±3.96
	Very good	27.67±1.53
frailty level	Health group^a	27.46±2.37	17.87 (<.001)	a>b>c
	High risk frailty older adults^b	24.47±3.40
	frailty group^c	22.22±3.96
Home care services	Yes	23.08±3.81	-3.04 (.003)
Home care services	No	24.54±3.69	-3.04 (.003)

Table 5

Correlation among Depression, Cognitive Function & Related Factors (N=243)

Variables	Age	Education	Number of chronic disease	Subjective health status	Fraility level	Depression	Cognitive function
Variables	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)	r (p)
Age	1
Education	-.17 (.008)	1
Number of chronic disease	-.00 (.994)	-.05 (.469)	1
Subjective health status	.00 (.956)	.27 (<.001)	-.29 (<.001)	1
frailty level	.17 (.009)	-.30 (<.001)	.44 (<.001)	-.62 (<.001)	1
Depression	.14 (.035)	-.28 (<.001)	.22 (<.001)	-.61 (<.001)	.70 (<.001)	1
Cognitive function	-.29 (<.001)	.55 (<.001)	-.11 (.103)	.27 (<.001)	-.44 (<.001)	-.27 (<.001)	1

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