Recent trends in Geriatrics and Gerontological Studies - State Level Conference

Methodology

Sample The investigation was carried out on a sample of 100 persons ageing 60 years and above. Out of 100 samples, a group of 50 elderly (25 males and 25 females) were selected from old age homes and the rest 50 elderly (25 males and 25 females) were selected from their own home living with family members in North Kolkata .

Tool used
The present study employed the following tools for data collection;

General Background Schedule, The Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale and The Beck's Depression Inventory

General Background Schedule
A general background schedule for respondents have been used on certain demographic variables such as age, sex, educational background, marital status etc. This information schedule was designed by the investigator to gather demographic personal, economic and socio-cultural information from the subjects required for the study.

Revised University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness scale- Loneliness was measured by revised UCLA Loneliness scale. This is a 20-item self-report on which respondents have often expressed their feelings of isolation and dissatisfaction with social relationships and 10 statements dealing with satisfaction of one's social relationships and 10 statements dealing with dissatisfaction of one's social relationship. Participants indicated how frequently they experience each item on a scale from 1 to 4, corresponding to ‘never', ‘rarely', ‘sometimes' and ‘often' respectively. Split-half reliability in Indian context was 0.71 (Jha, 1988)

The Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI)
The BDI is a self-report measure of depression. It contains 21 items, scored 0 to 3, of which 15 items deal with ‘psychological symptoms and only 6 items are concerned with somatic symptoms. It has high reliability and validity. The maximum score is 63.

Statistical Analysis
From the collected data loneliness and depression scores were found out. Mean depression and loneliness score of male and female respondents were calculated separately and percentages were found out.

Result and Discussion

Loneliness occurs whenever there is a discrepancy between one's desired and one's perceived or actual relationships (Peplau and Perlman, 1979). Therefore, loneliness results from deficiencies in the person's social relations. Secondly, loneliness is a subjective phenomena (i.e. people can be alone without being lonely), and thirdly, loneliness is unpleasant and distressing.

Depression is a feeling of sadness, hopelessness, worthlessness and a feeling of self-reproach (Rosenfeld, 1985). Depression was found to be related to poorer financial status, less satisfying interpersonal relationships and poor physical health.

Depression and loneliness co-occur and the measures of the two states are substantially correlated. Bragg (1979) did a comparative study on loneliness and depression. Results indicated that loneliness and depression were significantly correlated (r = 0.49) but had different correlates.

Depression was associated with anger and dissatisfaction with the non-social aspects of life but loneliness was not. Loneliness was associated with low initiation of contact with friends, but depression was not.

Table No. 1
Mean scores for Institutionalized & non-institutionalized aged on loneliness and depression

Table No. 1 shows that the mean loneliness score of the institutionalized aged is higher (X=34.03). This mean that institutionalized aged feel lonelier than the aged living with family.

The mean depression score of institutionalized aged (X= 15.14) and non- institutionalized aged (X=13.64) show that institutionalized aged feel more depressed than the non- institutionalized aged.

The high level of loneliness in the institutionalized aged could be due to the following reasons:

i. The institutionalized aged have been left in the institution by their families or relatives and they feel they have been abandoned and thus, are not needed or loved, which probably leads to greater feelings of loneliness and depression.

ii. The institutionalized aged have low or practically no income of their own, which probably makes them feel that because of the lack of income they are institutionalized and as a result they feel lonelier.

iii. Majority of women were either illiterate or had very few years of schooling, as a result they could not read newspapers, magazines or books and therefore felt more lonely.

iv. Loneliness might reflect the lack of a significant caregiver, i.e. a high level of loneliness may result in institutionalization for those who have no one in the home to provide care for.

v. Moreover, in advanced age physical and sensory functions decline which limit mobility (e.g. driving, walking) and communication (e.g. less ability to see or hear a voice on the telephone), which further adds to loneliness.

The high level of depression in the institutionalized aged could be due to the following reasons:

i) Lack of family and work roles among the institutionalized aged could be another cause of depression. The majority of the institutionalized aged in this study were either widows or widowers, thus they lacked a satisfying interpersonal relationship in a life partner.

Conclusion

The present study can be summarized with the inference that institutionalized aged have greater feelings of loneliness and depression. Greater loneliness was associated with less friendship contacts, fewer close friends, social anxiety, low marital satisfaction, low life satisfaction, widowhood, poor income and poor physical health. Retirement from work, death of a spouse or some sort of serious physical illness or defect may lead to depression in elderly. However, in spite of the fact that the elderly living in families are psychologically healthy than the elderly living in institutions, for the aged old age homes are slowly becoming a socially acceptable option with the joint family system breaking down and family members failing to provide the support.