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LIFE SATISFACTION AND DEPRESSION PATTERNS AMONG ELDERLY PERSONS ATTENDING A DAYCARE CENTER COMPARED WITH THOSE WHO DO NOT: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY, BAHRAIN 2015.

Noor Abdulhameed Alkhawaja, Noor Abbas Rabia, Fatema Abdulkareem Alhayki, Salman Baqer Alnajjar , Bashayer Habib Abbas, Sarah Jasim Hadi, Hasan Adel Alajaimi, Fatima S.Saeed Alawi, S. Mahmood Almosawi, Layla AlNahseet

Life satisfaction and overall mental well-being of elderly people has become an important aspect in geriatric care, especially with the continuous rise in percentage of elderly population worldwide including the Kingdom of Bahrain. Hence, it is important to identify the factors and social facilities – like elderly daycare centers – that are associated with better life satisfaction among elderly people. The proposed study provides a baseline guide for policy makers on whether or not there is a need for elderly daycare centers in Bahrain in order to improve elderly’s psychological health and well-being. This study compared the degree of life satisfaction and prevalence of depression between two populations, each was comprised of 69 elderly subjects (56 females and 13 males) aged 60 years and above. One population attended regularly an elderly daycare center “Dar UCO Day Care Center” located in governorate of Muharraq, Kingdom of Bahrain, while the other did not attend any daycare center and was obtained by convenient sampling method from primary health care centers in the same geographic area. Life satisfaction was measured by the “Life Satisfaction Scale by Dr. Majdi Aldassoqi”, on the other hand, depression was measured by the “Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) by Sherry A. Greenberg”. Both scales were in Arabic and were previously used in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Data was collected from the 23rd August to 10th September, 2015 and was analyzed using the SPSS software. The study revealed that 69.6% of those attending UCO were satisfied with life compared to 49.3% of those from the health care centers. In addition, 47.8% of the individuals in UCO population were depressed compared to 52.2% of those in the health care centers population. Such results imply that those attending daycare centers, being surrounded by others of the same age group, have higher life satisfaction and are less likely to suffer from depression. Key words: Life Satisfaction, Depression, Psychological Health, Elderly day Care Center, Geriatric Care.

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