Pain and depression in the nursing home: corroborating results

The relationship between depressed affect and pain was examined in secondary analysis of data on 408 nursing home residents. Also assessed were cognitive impairment, activities of daily living impairment, quality of social networks, and number of medical diagnoses. Analysis revealed that depressed residents were more likely to have pain, regardless of the presence of cognitive impairment. Multiple regression revealed that depressed affect was predicted by more pain, a greater number of medical diagnoses, and poor quality of the social network. These findings corroborate and extend those from a recent study of nursing home and congregate apartment residents (Parmelee et al., 1991). This corroboration and extension of findings occurred despite differences between the two studies with regard to characteristics of participants (this research included residents with all levels of cognitive impairment, and research by Parmelee et al. excluded those who were too disoriented to respond to questions), type of data collection employed (this research used ratings by professional caregivers whereas research by Parmelee et al. used self-report), and assessment instruments used to tap constructs.