Centre for Policy on Ageing



Psychotropic drug use and the relation between social support, life events, and mental health in the elderly
Author(s)	Guilhème M Pérodeau, Guillaume Galbaud du Fort
Journal title	Journal of Applied Gerontology, vol 19, no 1, March 2000
Pages	pp 23-41
Keywords	Drugs ; Depression ; Anxiety ; Loneliness ; Mental health [elderly] ; Informal care ; Canada.
Annotation	109 psychotropic drug users were compared with 90 non-users (age range 62-98), to determine whether self-reported social support and life events explained differences in their levels of anxiety and depression. Two-thirds of respondents were French-speaking, mostly female (82.1%) and widowed (57.4%), and recipients of a home care programme in Montreal, Canada. The life event and social support scales, broken down by item value, did not differentiate users from non-users, except for feelings of loneliness reported by 40% of users compared to only 16% of non-users. Analysis of the relation between psychiatric symptomatology and psychosocial variables, broken down by item value, showed greater sensitivity among users to perceived (subjective) lack in social support. In contrast, only "feelings of loneliness" had an effect on non-users' mental health. There was no effect with regard to objective items of social support. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-000418402 A
Classmark	LLD: ENR: ENP: DV: D: P6: 7S
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.