Relationship between depression and loneliness in elderly and examination of influential factors

This study was planned and conducted for the purpose of examining the relationship between depression and loneliness in elderly people and the influencing factors. The study was a descriptive and correlational study and its population consisted of 17,080 older individuals aged sixty and over who were registered at six Family Healthcare Centers (FHCs) located in the provisional center of Malatya. The sample of the study comprised of 913 elderly people who were chosen from the elderly people registered at the FHCs first by cluster sampling and then by simple random sampling from the clusters in proportion to the population. The data was collected between April and June 2011 using a questionnaire developed by the investigators in line with the literature, the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS). They had a mean score of 13.83 ± 7.4 from the GDS and 40.50 ± 12.1 from the ULS. A positive correlation was found between Geriatric Depression and loneliness (r=0.608, p<0.001). It was observed that there was a significant correlation between loneliness and depression in the elderly people living in a community, presence of social security and higher income, on the other hand, led to lower mean scores. In view of these results, it can be advised that a minimum income should be secured for elderly people whether they have social security or not, their families and the society should be trained not to leave elderly people alone.