Comorbidity of Anxiety and Depression in Geriatric Patients

Objective: The aim of the study is to explore the clinical feature of depressed elderly patients.Methods: Seventy-eight geriatric depression patients diagnosed according to DSM-IV were divided to pure depression (depression group, N=44) and comorbidity anxiety and depression group (comorbidity group, N=34). All patients were investigated with HAMD, HAMA, SF-36, GDS and MMSE. Results: Compare the rates of psychiatric family history, life thing and sex, age, education year, living condition, nation and course of disease, the two group were not significantly different (P0.05). The score of HAMD(38.1±4.0/33.4±4.7,t=4.35), HAMA(22.6±5.5/11.7±2.7,t=10.93), GDS(14.0±1.2/12.1±2.0,t=4.92) of comorbidity group was significantly higher than that of the depression group. The social function (SF)(70.0±21.2/50.0±22.5,t=4.02) and physical function (PF)(79.2±13.6/69.1±13.6,t=3.25) scores of SF-36 were significantly higher in depressive group than in comorbidity group. Conclusion: Comorbid depression and anxiety and anxious depression are associated with more severe overall psychopathology than nonanxious depression in elderly persons, similar to observations in younger adults.