Behavioural habits and affective disorders in old people

The purpose of this paper is to explore and detect possible factors associated with the appearance and maintainance of affective disorders in the elderly; special emphasis was put on anxiety and depression. Two hundred and seven Cordobese citizens over 65 years of age, filled in a Hospital Anxiety and Depression Questionnaire and a Habit Behavioural Questionnaire. The variables sex, hospitalization and family life were controlled. The results emphasize the existence of moderate but significant correlations between depression and certain behavioural habits in the elderly, such as: appetite, taking walks and sleeping. The greater the appetite, food intake, taking of frequent walks and hours of sleep, the more the association with lower levels of depression in the elderly studied. Anxiety, on the other hand, only correlates significantly with behavioural habits related to sleep cycles. By means of a unifactorial variance analysis, the differential effect of some of the behavioural habits on the aforementioned disorders is shown. Using a multiple regression analysis, results of the behavioural habits, which seem to be the best predictors of anxiety and depression in the elderly, are obtained. After a discussion of these results, their possible implications in nursing are analysed and a few interesting conclusions are drawn.