Coping style and social support in senile depressive patients at convalescent stage / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The clinical manifestation of senile depression is not typical. The patients with senile depression seldom visit in general hospital, which is hard for clinical doctors to identify the disease at early time.OBJECTIVE: To research the traits of Coping style and social support in the recovered senile depressive patients.DESIGN: Case-control observation.SETTING: Department of Psychology in North China Coal Medical College.PARTICIPANTS: Ninety-six senile depressive patients at convalescent stage were selected for depressive group in clinic service of Beijing Anding Hospital from November 2004 to October 2005. Inclusion criteria ①Aged≥60 years old. ② Coded with depression with DSM-Ⅳ. ③ Being the period of recovery, geriatric depression scale(GDS)≤10. ④Informed consent was obtained from each participant. Exclusion criteria ① Depression resulted from other factors for instance substance abuse and schizophrenia,etc. ②Serious and instable body disease such as cerebrovascular disease,liver and kidney disease, falling sickness, disease of internal secretion. Totally 104 questionnaires were sent out, and 96 were qualified. 37 were male and 59 were female in the depressive group, aged 60-87 years old,with average of (68±6)years. The course of disease was 0.3-11 years, with mean of 2 years. The elderly from ordinary community of Beijing were invited for control group. Inclusion criteria ①Aged ≥ 60 years old; ② No mental disease. ③ Informed consent was obtained from each participant.Exclusion criteria The same to the depressive group. There are 100 participants in the control group, 44 were male and 56 were female, aged 60 to 84 years old, with average (67±5) years old. There were no significant differences between depressive group and control group in gender, age, education, living conditions and marriage status.METHODS: 96 senile depressive patients at convalescent stage and 100healthy aged were investigated with self-made questionnaire, Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) and Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire (SCSQ).MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The scores of the self-made questionnaire, GDS, SSRS and SCSQ answered by participants in each group.RESULTS: All the 196 participants entered the result analysis. There was not disqualified questionnaire. There were significantly lower scores of positive coping style and higher scores of negative coping style in the depressive group than the control group(P ＜ 0.05 ). There was lower score of social support, subjective social support and use of social support in the depressive group than the control group (P ＜ 0.05). The scores of objective social support was not significantly different in each group. There was remarkable positive correlation between active coping style and score of social support, subjective social support and use of social support in recovered senile depressive group (P ＜ 0.01). Passive coping style was negatively correlated with score of social support, subjective social support and use of social support(P ＜ 0.01 ).CONCLUSION: Subjective social support and use of social support and negative coping style are the major risk factor in the onset of senile depression.