Do depressed older adults who attribute depression to "old age" believe it is important to seek care?

To determine whether depressed older adults who attribute becoming depressed to "old age" rather than illness are more likely to believe it is not important to seek treatment for depression.

Cross-sectional mailed survey.

Academically affiliated primary care physicians' network.

Surveys were mailed to 588 patients age > or =65 years who were randomly identified from patient lists of 20 physicians. Surveys were returned by 429 patients (73%). Patients were eligible for this study if they scored > or =2 points on the 5-item Geriatric Depression Scale (n = 94) and were not missing key variables (final n = 90).

Of the 90 depressed patients, 48 (53%) believed that feeling depressed was very important to discuss with a doctor. In unadjusted analysis, older adults who did not believe it is very important to discuss feeling depressed with a doctor were more likely to attribute becoming depressed to aging (41% vs 17%; P =.012). In a logistic regression model adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, number of impairments in basic and instrumental activities of daily living, medical comorbidity, and physical (PCS-12) and mental (MCS-12) component summary scores from the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form-12, depressed older adults who attributed depression to aging had a 4.3 times greater odds than those who attributed depression to illness to not believe it is very important to discuss depression with a doctor (odds ratio [OR], 4.3; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.3 to 14.5).

Among older persons with depression, attributing feeling depressed to old age may be an important barrier to care seeking.