Differences in symptomatology and diagnostic profile in younger and elderly depressed inpatients

Background: Depression is the most prevalent psychiatric disorder in the el derly and several studies indicate that 10-15% of persons over 65 years suf fer from significant depressive symptoms. Despite the high prevalence, most cases of depression in the elderly remain unrecognized and untreated, mayb e because of a different pattern of symptoms across age groups. The objecti ve of the study was to compare symptomatology and diagnostic profile betwee n younger and elderly DSM-III and DSM-III-R major depressed inpatients and to advise an appropriate depression scale for the elderly. Methods: The stu dy covers 461 depressed inpatients evaluated with the Hamilton Depression S cale and the Newcastle 1965 Scale. To find differences between younger and elderly patients, the symptomatology was analyzed stepwise by principal com ponent analyses, latent structure analyses and single item analyses. Result s: No clinically significant differences in symptomatology between younger and elderly depressed patients were found. The DSM-IV concept of Major Depr ession and the ICD-IO criteria for depression was not influenced by patient s' age. Limitations: All patients were hospitalized and mainly endogenously depressed and generalization of the results to other populations should be made with caution. Only pretreatment data was analyzed. Conclusions: The D SM-IV concept of Major Depression and the ICD-IO criteria for depression ca n be used without modification for age. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.