The influence of age, sex and education on the phenomenology of depressive symptoms in a population-based sample aged 75+ years with major depression: the Pietà Study

Abstract

Objectives

Late-life depression (LLD) is the most common mental disorder among the elderly, but its clinical features remain unclear, especially among older adults. We sought to investigate if age, sex and education could influence the severity or frequency of LLD symptoms.

Methods

We evaluated 639 community-dwelling individuals aged 75+ years in Caeté (MG), Brazil. We used the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview to diagnose major depression according to DSM-IV criteria and the GDS-15 to measure depression severity.

Results

Excluding 174 individuals diagnosed with dementia, 54 (11.6%) of the remaining 457 individuals were diagnosed with LLD; 77.8% of which were female. On average, these participants were aged 81.0 ± 4.8 years and had 2.7 ± 3.3 years of schooling. Symptom severity was not influenced by sociodemographic variables. Death/suicidal ideation was more frequent among men, while psychomotor disturbance was more present in women (p = 0.04 and p = 0.042). More educated individuals (≥ 4 years) also reported a higher frequency of psychomotor disturbance (p = 0.039).

Conclusions

Severity of depressive episode was not influenced by sociodemographic variables. Sex and educational level had a significant impact on symptom profiles.

Keywords:

• Late-life depression
• phenomenology
• education
• age
• sex

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the partnership from Instituto Hermes Pardini and Laboratório Geraldo Lustosa. We greatly thank Maria Ângela Dutra Ornellas for the local coordination of the operational arrangements. We are deeply grateful to the City Hall, the Municipal Health Department and the Retired and Pensioner Pavilion from Caeté (MG) for their continuous support to the Pietà study and also to all elderly participants and their families for the generous collaboration and engagement on the research project. We would also like to thank Fernando Henrique Pereira for the valuable contribution on the statistical analysis.

Additional information

Funding

The Pietà Study, from which this paper derives, took place in Caeté (State of Minas Gerais), Brazil, and is partially supported by the CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development) and FAPEMIG (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa de Minas Gerais – State foundation for research support of Minas Gerais).