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Depression and Increased Health Services Utilization Among Elderly Primary Care Patients
This study has been completed.
Sponsored by: Soroka University Medical Center
Information provided by: Soroka University Medical Center
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00279526
  Purpose

The increase in life expectancy in the 21st century has resulted in a major growth in the prevalence of age-related diseases and conditions. Depression has been found to be the most prevalent among the various mental disorders in later life. It was emphasized that depression in the elderly is a persistent or recurrent disorder resulting from psychosocial stress or physiologic effects of disease and can lead to disability, cognitive impairments, intensified symptoms of other medical conditions and increased utilization of health care services. Due to the rapidly aging population, depression is a serious public health concern that has a great impact on quality of life and may lay a considerable burden on the health care systems. However depression among the elderly may prove to be hard to diagnose since in aged persons depressive symptoms are often masked by somatic complaints or by cognitive impairments. Consequently depression is often under diagnosed and the patients continue to visit constantly the nurse or the physician without getting an adequate answer to their problem. For that reason over utilization of health care services may be an indicator to the presence of undiagnosed depression. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between socio-demographic variables, high primary care utilization and depressive symptomatology among aged patients.


Condition
Depression

MedlinePlus related topics: Depression
U.S. FDA Resources
Study Type: Observational
Study Design: Natural History, Cross-Sectional, Random Sample, Prospective Study

Further study details as provided by Soroka University Medical Center:

Estimated Enrollment: 450
Study Start Date: April 2006
Study Completion Date: December 2006
  Show Detailed Description

  Eligibility

Ages Eligible for Study:   65 Years and older
Genders Eligible for Study:   Both
Accepts Healthy Volunteers:   No
Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:-

  • Age 65 or older,
  • Clalit health organization client
  • Outpatient
  • Hebrew or English or Russian speaker
  • Living in Beer Sheva

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Known diagnosis of depression, major depression, bipolar disorder, psychosis, dementia or substance abuse
  • Current acute illness
  Contacts and Locations
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00279526

Locations
Israel
Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Beer- Sheva, Israel
Sponsors and Collaborators
Soroka University Medical Center
Investigators
Principal Investigator: Yan Press, MD Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
  More Information

Study ID Numbers: sor417105ctil
Study First Received: January 18, 2006
Last Updated: May 24, 2007
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00279526  
Health Authority: Israel: Ministry of Health

Keywords provided by Soroka University Medical Center:
Depression
Health services utilization
Elderly
Primary Care

Study placed in the following topic categories:
Depression
Mental Disorders
Mood Disorders
Depressive Disorder
Behavioral Symptoms

ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on January 16, 2009