| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
| Determinants of thoughts of death or suicide in depressed older persons | | Author(s) | Ista C H M Bogers |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 25, no 11, November 2013 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, November 2013 |
| Pages | pp 1775-1782 |
| Source | journals.cambridge.org/ipg |
| Keywords | Depression ; Suicide ; At risk ; Death ; Dying ; Attitude. |
| Annotation | In depressed persons, thoughts of death and suicide are assumed to represent different degrees of a construct: suicidality. However this can be questioned in older persons facing physical and social losses. Thoughts of death in depressed older persons are hardly examined in the absence of suicidal ideation. Furthermore most depression instruments do not discriminate suicidal ideation from thoughts of death only. This study examined whether determinants of thoughts of death differ from determinants of suicidal ideation in late life depression. Past month's thoughts of death and suicidal ideation were assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview in 378 depressed older persons aged 60 or above. Multinomial logistic regression analyses adjusted for age and depression severity were used to identify socio-demographic, lifestyle, clinical and somatic determinants of past month's thoughts of death and suicidal ideation. Compared with patients without thoughts of death or suicide, patients reporting thoughts of death but no suicidal ideation were older and more severely depressed, whereas patients with suicidal ideation were also more severely depressed but not older. This latter group was further characterised by more psychiatric comorbidity, panic disorder, at-risk alcohol use, lifetime suicide attempts, loneliness and recent life events. In depressed older persons thoughts of death and suicide differ in relevant demographic, social, and clinical characteristics, suggesting that the risks and consequences of the two conditions differ. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-131025209 A |
| Classmark | ENR: EV: CA3: CW: CX: DP |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|