Causes of Depressive Symptoms in Early Ageing

Summary Major benefits of this study are: 1. There is opportunity for publication 2. You will have access to a unique database with two decades of psychological and social data 3. This study would be particularly suited to an individual wishing to gain experience in the areas of geriatric psychology and/or depression.

Project Details

Project description: It is predicted that by 2051, 26.1% of Australians will be older than 65 years and 9.4% will be 80 years or older (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001). With prevalence rates of depression in the elderly set to rise in accordance with the population surge identifying preventative measures and means of early detection in this population is especially important.

The focus of this project will be to examine factors which affect the rating of depressive symptoms on three different standardised and widely used measures in a cross-section of women entering late-life. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the Centre for Epidemiological Studies – Depression Scale (CES-D) and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) will be administered to the cohort of the Women’s Healthy Ageing Project. Analysis will be conducted examining the consistency of item rating between measures in order to identify correlations between scales. Psychological and social data will also be obtained from the cohort and will allow for the identification of any factors influencing the rating of measures.

Major benefits of this study are:

• There is opportunity for publication
• You will have access to a unique database with two decades of psychological and social data

This study would be particularly suited to an individual wishing to gain experience in the areas of geriatric psychology and/or depression.