Identifying psychological distress in elderly seeking health care

Indian Journal of Public Health
Prafulla ShivakumarMathew Varghese

Abstract

Psychological distress in the elderly with various illness conditions often goes unrecognized. Since psychological distress is treatable, it is important to recognize it at the earliest to enhance recovery. This is an interim analysis of screening data of the elderly seeking health care in a hospital in India, with a focus on the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), a screening instrument for psychological distress and a rationale for a higher cutoff score in help seeking elderly. A retrospective analysis of screening data of psychological distress using GHQ-12 in the elderly seeking care for neuropsychiatric conditions was carried out. Traditionally, ≥2 is considered positive for distress by GHQ-12. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve was used to define new cutoff points for psychological distress. At ≥2, 2443 (50%) of the elderly screened were recognized to be psychologically distressed. Using an ROC and optimum sensitivity and specificity measures, a cutoff score of ≥4 was observed to detect 30% of the elderly who had diagnosable mental health disorders. Female sex, illiteracy, and multiple co-morbidities were the factors that were associated with higher cutoff scores on GHQ-12 proposed here and psychiatr...Continue Reading

Citations

Mar 19, 2019·European Journal of Cancer Care·Rajib RanaJeff Dunn
Nov 28, 2019·Statistics in Medicine·Antonia ZapfTim Friede

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