The Relationship Between Disability and Variables of Depression, Cognitive Status, and Morale Among Older People

• Published in: Sālmand
• Main Authors: Mohammad Reza Shahbazi, Mahshid Foroughan, Reza Salman Roghani, Mehdi Rahgozar
• Format: Article
• Language: Persian
• Published: University of Social Welfare & Rehabilitation Sciences 2016-04-01
• Subjects: Cognition; Depression; Disability; Morale; Older adults; World health organization
• Online Access: http://salmandj.uswr.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-597-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1
• ISSN: 1735-806X; 1735-806X

Objectives: This study aimed to assess disability and its relationship with depression, cognitive status, and&nbsp;morale in older people. Methods & Materials: This descriptive-analytic research was conducted in a day-care rehabilitation center&nbsp;of Kahrizak charity foundation. A total of 90 older adults were selected by total enumeration sampling&nbsp;method. For the evaluation of study participants, we used The World Health Organization Disability Assessment&nbsp;2.0 (WHODAS II) (36 items). This questionnaire examines the person&rsquo;s disability in 6 domains of&nbsp;cognition, mobility, self-care, getting along, life activities, and social participation. The depression status&nbsp;was determined by Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15), cognitive status by Abbreviated Mental test&nbsp;(AMT), and morale of older people by Lawton&rsquo;s Philadelphia Geriatric Center Morale Scale. The Chisquare&nbsp;test, Independent t-test, Mann-Whitney U-test, Kruskal-Wallis, and the Spearman correlation&nbsp;coefficient were carried out to analyze the data. Results:&nbsp;The mean (SD) score of older adults&rsquo; disability was 20.61 (13.66) indicating a significant difference between&nbsp;men and women (P=0.001). The women&rsquo;s mean disability score was higher than that of men.&nbsp;With regard to 6 domains of disability, the highest disability was seen in domains of mobility, life activities,&nbsp;and participation. There were also significant differences between men and women with regard&nbsp;to the mean disability scores of mobility (P=0.001), life activities (P=0.001), and participation (P=0.005),&nbsp;i.e., the mean disability scores of women were higher than those of men. However, there were no differences&nbsp;between men and women with regard to domains of getting along, cognition, and self-care.&nbsp;Furthermore, there were no significant differences between various educational groups with regard to&nbsp;mean scores of disabilities. There were significant associations between disability scores and depression&nbsp;(P<0.001), cognitive status (P<0.001), and morale of older people (P<0.001). This association was direct&nbsp;in depression and reverse in cognitive status, and morale, i.e., with an increase in depression scores and&nbsp;a decrease in cognitive status and morale, the disability of older people increases. There were significant&nbsp;and reverse associations between disability and 3 subscales of spirit of agitation (P<0.001), attitudes to&nbsp;aging (P<0.001), and dissatisfaction with loneliness (P<0.001). Conclusion: Disability in older people had a significant relationship with their depression, cognitive status,&nbsp;and morale. Thus, the degree of their disability can be lowered by prevention and early treatment of depression,&nbsp;promotion of memory, delaying cognitive disorders, as well as providing morale enhancement&nbsp;programs, creating a positive attitude toward old age, and increasing life satisfaction in older people.&nbsp;