Original ArticleDepression and Anxiety in Visually Impaired Older People
Section snippets
Patients and Methods
The Medical Research Council trial of the assessment and management of older people in the community was a large-cluster randomized trial in 106 general practices from the Medical Research Council General Practice Research Framework.17 The practices in the study were selected to be representative of the mortality (standardized mortality ratio) and Jarman scores of general practices in Britain (England, Wales, and Scotland). The aim of the trial was to evaluate the benefit of different methods
Results
Figure 1 shows a profile of the study. There were 43 219 eligible people in the 106 practices enrolled in the study. In the universal arm of the study, there were 21 762 eligible people in 53 general practices. Of these, 15 735 (72%) underwent a detailed assessment. People taking part were slightly younger (mean age, 81.2 years; standard deviation [SD], 4.8 years) than those not taking part (mean age, 82.0 years; SD, 5.2 years; P<0.001, Student’s t test comparing these 2 mean ages). There was an
Discussion
We found that 13.5% (95% CI, 11.5%–15.4%) of people aged 75 years and older with binocular visual impairment were depressed, that is, scored 6 or more on the GDS. This is lower than in previous studies (Table 5). However, this study reports the prevalence of depression in a large community-based sample of visually impaired people. Previous studies in general identified participants from people attending for health care, and this may account for the fact that higher rates of depression were
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Manuscript no. 2005-1094.
The Medical Research Council Trial of the Assessment and Management of Older People in the Community was funded by the Medical Research Council, London, United Kingdom; Department of Health, London, United Kingdom; and Scottish Office, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. Collection of data on causes of visual impairment and additional analyses was funded by the Thomas Pocklington Trust, London, United Kingdom.