Prevalence of Depression Symptoms among the Elderly Population of Southern Iran

Background: the purpose of this study was to determine theprevalence of depression symptoms and the effect of variousdemographic characteristics on its severity in an elderlypopulation in fars province, southern iran.methods: this cross-sectional study was conducted during mayand september 2009. a sample of 1461 men and women, agedmore than 60 years were selected using a multistage stratifiedrandom sampling method. levels of depression symptoms weremeasured using the geriatric depression scale (gds). datawere analyzed using spss software. also, analysis of variance(anova) and correlation analysis were performed to find thecorrelation between the variables and gds score.results: overall, 1443 people completed the questionnaire. theprevalence of the symptoms mild to moderate depression (gds:5-10) was 51.1%, while that of severe depression symptoms (gds > 10) was 19.7%. there were significant relationships betweensex, marital status, educational level, occupation, residentialplace and the gds scores.conclusion: the prevalence of depression symptoms was highamong the elderly in fars province. therefore, if properly trained,primary care teams could help these patients.