Centre for Policy on Ageing



Distinction of early and late onset depression in the elderly by their lifetime symptomatology
Author(s)	Reinhard Heun, Martin Kockler, Andreas Papassotiropoulos
Journal title	International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 15, no 12, December 2000
Pages	pp 1138-1142
Keywords	Depression ; Early ; Late ; Mental disorder ; Symptoms ; Screening ; Germany.
Annotation	It has been proposed that early-onset depression (EOD) and late-onset depression (LOD) differ aetiologically and phenomenologically. In this study, 71 patients with age-at-onset of depression below 60 years (EOD) and 67 age-matched patients with age-at-onset over 60 (LOD) were recruited from the Departments of Psychiatry at the University of Mainz and the University of Bonn. To reduce the effect of inter-episode variance of symptoms, the study focused on lifetime prevalence of different affective symptoms which were evaluated using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify particular depressive symptoms which might discriminate EOD and LOD, and to account for possible sociodemographic differences between the two groups. Low spirits and feelings of worthlessness were more frequently found in EOD, sufficient to distinguish older people with EOD and LOD. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-010227205 A
Classmark	ENR: 4J: 4L: E: CT: 3V: 767
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.