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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Depressive symptoms, depletion or developmental change?
— withdrawal, apathy and lack of vigor in the Geriatric Depression Scale | | Author(s) | Kathryn Betts Adams |
| Journal title | The Gerontologist, vol 41, no 6, December 2001 |
| Pages | pp 768-777 |
| Keywords | Depression ; Symptoms ; Evaluation ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Researchers have posited a depletion syndrome in older people that resembles "depression without sadness". Disengagement-related theories also describe an adaptive narrowing of the older person's social world and decreasing investment in activities and social relationships. This study has dual goals of confirming the existence of a "withdrawal/apathy/lack of vigor" (WAV) dimension of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and of exploring its properties for evidence that it may be descriptive of either depletion or disengagement-related change in older people. Data was obtained through a postal survey of members (65+) at a health maintenance organisation (HMO). Respondents returned 327 completed surveys and 163 decline postcards. Principal components analysis obtained a 6-item WAV factor for further analyses. High endorsement rates for the items in WAV and its bivariate correlations with age and health problems suggest WAV may be congruent with disengagement or depletion, and may lead to over-identification of depression in older people. Interpretation of the GDS and similar measures may be improved by use of subscale scores and consideration of the respondent's age and health status. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-020130206 A |
| Classmark | ENR: CT: 4C: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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