gms | German Medical Science

MAINZ//2011: 56. GMDS-Jahrestagung und 6. DGEpi-Jahrestagung

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie e. V.
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Epidemiologie e. V.

26. - 29.09.2011 in Mainz

Age- and Gender-Specific Prevalence of Depression in Latest-Life – Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Meeting Abstract

  • Melanie Luppa - Institute of Social Medicine, Occupational Health and Public Health, University of Leipzig, Leipzig
  • Claudia Sikorski - Institute of Social Medicine, Occupational Health and Public Health, University of Leipzig, Leipzig
  • Tobias Luck - Institute of Social Medicine, Occupational Health and Public Health, University of Leipzig, Leipzig
  • Lena Ehreke - Institute of Social Medicine, Occupational Health and Public Health, University of Leipzig, Leipzig
  • Alexander Konnopla - Department of Medical Sociology and Health Economics, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg
  • Birgitt Wiese - Hannover Medical School, Institute for Biometry, Hannover
  • Siegfried Weyerer - Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim
  • Hans-Helmut König - Department of Medical Sociology and Health Economics, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg
  • Steffi G. Riedel-Heller - Institute of Social Medicine, Occupational Health and Public Health, University of Leipzig, Leipzig

Mainz//2011. 56. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie (gmds), 6. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Epidemiologie (DGEpi). Mainz, 26.-29.09.2011. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2011. Doc11gmds356

doi: 10.3205/11gmds356, urn:nbn:de:0183-11gmds3562

Published: September 20, 2011

© 2011 Luppa et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Outline

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Objective: The objective of the study is to systematically analyze the prevalence of depression in latest life (75+), particularly focusing on age- and gender-specific rates across the latest-life age groups.

Design: Relevant articles were identified by systematically searching the databases MEDLINE, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and Psycinfo and relevant literature from 1999 onwards was reviewed. Studies based on the community-based elderly population aged 75 years and older were included. Quality of studies was assessed. Meta-analysis was performed using random effects model.

Results: 24 studies reporting age- and gender-specific prevalence of depression were found. 13 studies had a high to moderate methodical quality. The preva-lence of major depression ranged from 4.6% to 9.3%, and that of depressive disor-ders from 4.5% to 37.4%. Pooled prevalence was 7.2% (95% CI 4.4-10.6%) for major depression and 17.1% (95% CI 9.7-26.1%) for depressive disorders. Potential sources of high heterogeneity of prevalence were study design, sampling strategy, study quality and applied diagnostics of latest life depression.

Conclusions: Despite the wide variation in estimates, it is evident that latest life depression is common. To reduce variability of study results, particularly sampling strategies (inclusion of nursing home residents and severe cognitively impaired individuals) for the old age study populations should be addressed more thoroughly in future research.