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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Role of depressive and cognitive status in self-reported evaluation of quality of life in older people
— comparing proxy and physician perspectives | | Author(s) | Paolo Scocco, Giovanna Fantoni, Federico Caon |
| Journal title | Age and Ageing, vol 35, no 2, March 2006 |
| Pages | pp 166-171 |
| Source | http://www.ageing.oxfordjournals.org |
| Keywords | Depression ; Mental health [elderly] ; Quality of life ; Evaluation ; Informal care ; General practitioners ; Comparison ; Italy. |
| Annotation | 138 non-institutionalised Italian older men and women, their respective caregivers and treating doctors were consecutively recruited (response rate was 74.6%). 40 suffered from Alzheimer's disease (AD), 36 from depressive syndrome (DS), 35 from both conditions, and 27 had neither. All participants were evaluated by Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL) questionnaire. Caregivers filled out QOL-Proxy, and physicians filled out the Health and Severity of Illness form. The four groups scored significantly differently in all areas of the WHOQOL questionnaire. Subjects with depression achieved lower mean quality of life (QoL) scores than healthy subjects and those with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The scores of those with depressive syndrome (DS) and AD were intermediate. The more severe the depressive symptoms, the lower the scores. The discrepancy between users and caregiver proxy ratings covered all QoL domains for demented patients, some domains for healthy subjects, while there was complete convergence for depressed patients. Older people with AD perceive their own QoL similarly to, and in some areas, better than healthy people of the same age. The opposite was observed among the depressed, while informants do not always observe QoL in the same way as healthy older people and those with AD, while there is more agreement with depressed patients. Information evaluation may be helpful, but it is not necessarily reliable. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060517211 A |
| Classmark | ENR: D: F:59: 4C: P6: QT6: 48: 76V |
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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