Consideration for a community screening instrument for depression amongst the elderly in Hong Kong
Copyright © 1992 Hong Kong Association of Gerontology
Abstract
Depression is said to be a major psychological disorder amongst the aged in Hong Kong. It has been established that, untreated depression often ends with suicide, and therefore it is vitally important for all elderly care workers (general practitioners, nurses, social workers and alike), to be able to screen out these depressive elderly for proper diagnosis and treatments - hence the need of a simple standardized measurement, for preliminary community screening.
This paper has provided an overview of the nature of standardized measurements of depression, a review the general considerations when using such measurements amongst the elderly, and an investigation into some cautions one has to take into account when the measurement is applied to the Chinese elderly in Hong Kong.