A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SEVERITY OF DEPRESSION AMONG CAREGIVERS OF PATIENTS SUFFERING FROM DEMENTIA AND CANCER
Journal Title: Journal of Evolution of Medical and Dental Sciences - Year 2017, Vol 6, Issue 77
Abstract
BACKGROUND Due to declining global fertility transition and mortality rates, population ageing is a public health challenge. Dementia contributes to a significant proportion of DALY. People with dementia require high level of long-term care and causes burden to the caregivers, both physically and mentally and more prone to depression. The other leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the world is cancer. Because of advancement in palliative care treatment, long-term care is needed for the patients producing definite disturbances in the physical and psychological well-being of the caregivers. The aim of the study is to compare the prevalence of depressive symptoms among the caregivers of patients with Dementia and Cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS Caregivers of patients with Dementia and with Cancer, in the age group of 20 - 85 years, were taken into study from a Government hospital in Chennai by consecutive sampling. Socio-demographic details were obtained using semi-structured proforma. Assessment of Depression in caregivers was done using ICD-10 criteria and MADRS. RESULTS The two groups- caregivers of dementia and cancer had similar distribution of gender, marital status, religion, family type, locality and education. According to ICD-10 classification, depression was found high (72.5%) among caregivers of cancer patients compared to caregivers of dementia patients (17.5%) (p= 0.0001). Severity of depression was also more in caregivers of cancer patients than the caregivers of dementia patients (2.5%). CONCLUSION Depression was found to be four times higher among cancer caregivers than dementia caregivers. Depression has negative effects on quality of life of the caregivers and also the patient.
Authors and Affiliations
Punithavathi D, Alexander Gnana Durai W. J, Saravana Jothi R, Mohamed Ilyas Rahamathulla M, Hariharan P, Priyadarshini R, Nileena N. K. M, Rekha Ravindran
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