A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Global Prevalence of Depression in Older Adults with Multi-morbidity

Multi-morbidity, the coexistence of two or more chronic illnesses, is also increasing among older adults in the ageing world. The estimated prevalence of depression is 21.14% in persons with multi-morbidity compared to 3.91% in those without any chronic illness. As there was no data particularly for older adults with multi-morbidity, it was decided to conduct a systematic review of rates of depression.

This PROSPERO-registered study adhered to PRISMA guidelines. Searches for cross-sectional and population-based studies in the previous ten-year period (2014-2023) in databases and search engines, namely PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, and PsycINFO, were conducted. Results: From an initial pool of 555 papers, 15 moderate-to-high quality studies were included for the systematic review, of which 10 were eligible for meta-analysis. The pooled prevalence of depression was 46.7% (95% CI = 33.8%-57.4%) for six studies with individuals aged 60 years and above and 12.9% (95% CI = 5.7%-51.5%) for four studies focusing on those aged 65 years or above. Due to variations in defining the age cut-off of 60 and 65 years for older adults, separate analyses were performed.

Findings reveal that nearly half of older adults with multi-morbidity experience depression. This highlights the importance of the timely detection of depression in general hospitals and primary care settings.