Psychosocial characteristics among older adult clients in outpatient care

This study investigates main psychosocial characteristics of older adults (age ≥60) in an outpatient psychotherapeutic context and to derive implications for tailored psychotherapeutic services by assessing the socio-demographic factors of this clientele, thereby deepening mental health professionals' understanding of psychotherapy for this age group.

The processed data were acquired during the standard initial registration protocol at the psychotherapeutic outpatient clinic for adults of the Sigmund Freud Private University Vienna (SFU). An analysis of psychosocial and clinical characteristics was conducted for n = 166 older adult clients. To operationalise the psychopathological characteristics, the instrument Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation - Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) was used. Thus, the results were obtained using one-way ANOVAs, χ² analyses, and descriptive statistics.

Older adult clients differ mainly compared with the other age groups in the following characteristics: lower educational levels [19.3%; χ²(n = 166, 10) = 305.04, c = .24, c_corr = .28, p <.001], higher expression rates of somatic diseases [51.2%; χ²(n = 166, 2) = 24.21, c = .07, c_corr = .09, p <.001], need for psychopharmacological treatment [43.3%; χ²(n = 166, 2) = 171.19, c = .18, c_corr = .24, p <.001], and lower level of alcohol and drug abuse [86.7%; χ²(n = 166, 2) = 195.08, c = .19, c_corr = .26, p <.001]. Moreover, older adult clients indicate significantly lower well-being scores than other age groups [F(2, 5,042) = 8.18, p <.001, η² = .003]. Additionally, older adults tend to terminate their therapeutic process prematurely (20.8%) but do not differ in effect systematically (p >.05).

This study demonstrates that older adult clients are similar to the other age groups in many psychosocial aspects but are additionally confronted with specific age-related challenges. Psychosocial care institutions should take these challenges into account.