Centre for Policy on Ageing



Prevalence of antidepressant use among older people: population-based observations
Author(s)	Muhammad Mamdani, Nathan Herrmann, Peter Austin
Journal title	Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, vol 47, no 11, November 1999
Pages	pp 1350-1353
Keywords	Depression ; Drugs ; Usage [services] ; Longitudinal surveys ; Canada.
Annotation	Depression is common among older people, yet it is frequently unrecognised and untreated by family physicians. This Canadian study assessed the prevalence of antidepressant use with respect to age, gender, and time during a 5-year period from 1993 to 1997 among all residents of Ontario aged 65 years or older. Findings showed that a general, positive, linear trend in the prevalence of antidepressant users with increasing age group was consistently detected regardless of gender and year assessed. The age-adjusted relative risk of women being dispensed an antidepressant relative to men was significantly higher each year but seemed to decrease slightly over time. The study concluded that the prevalence of antidepressant use was dynamic and was significantly and independently associated with age, gender, and time of assessment. (AKM).
Accession Number	CPA-000306209 A
Classmark	ENR: LLD: QLD: 3J: 7S
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.