Social Isolation and Depression among Elderly from an Indian Urban Slum Population

Abstract Background: The aim of the study was to understand the reported prevalence of subjective, objective social isolation, marginal family, and marginal friendship ties in relation to each other. Furthermore, we assessed the association between social isolation and depression in the data. Methods: We present findings from secondary analysis of data from a community-based analytical cross-sectional study conducted to estimate the prevalence of depression among the elderly in an urban slum of Raipur city, Chhattisgarh, India between 2019 and 2020. The data were available for 400 participants and analyzed using Stata v16. Results: The prevalence of objective social isolation among elderly was 34.3%, with 14.8% having marginal family ties and 43.5% having marginal friendship ties. The prevalence of subjective social isolation was 27.0%. Subjective social isolation was positively correlated ( r = 0.537; moderate correlation) with objective social isolation scores. Subjective social isolation, marginal family, and marginal friendship ties have 80.8%, 80.5%, and 88.3% agreement; 0.550, 0.499, and 0.755 Kappa measures of agreement, respectively, with objective social isolation total scores. Marginal friendship ties and objective social isolation had moderate interrater reliability with 57% coefficient of determination. In multivariable regression analysis, marginal friendship ties (adjusted odd’s ratio [AOR] 17.7, 95% confidence interval [CI] 5.6–55.5) and objective social isolation (AOR 12.2, 95% CI 1.2–129.6) were significantly associated with depression in elderly. Conclusion: It is the need of the hour to establish mechanisms that identify and predict social isolation in elderly; to eventually appreciate the natural history of depression in elderly.