Exploring the Link between Loneliness, Somatic Symptoms, and Caregiver Abuse in Late-life Depression – A Cross-sectional Hospital-based Mediation Analysis

Abstract Introduction: The prevalence of geriatric depression varies in-between 10% and 20% in different areas. Loneliness and small social network size were associated with mortality risk in elderly individuals. Loneliness in the elderly was also found to cause pain, which increased the prevalence of late-life depression. Aim: To explore the extent to which loneliness, somatic symptoms, and caregiver abuse were associated with depression in the rural geriatric population. Materials and Methods: A group of 106 patients diagnosed to have Depressive disorder as per the International Classification of Diseases-11 were recruited from the psychiatry department of a tertiary healthcare center for 6 months. Patients were assessed with a semi-structured pro forma that details about socioeconomic details and clinical data regarding the disorder, Geriatric Depression Scale, Caregiver Abuse Screen, Somatic Symptom scale-8, and DeJong Gierveld Loneliness Scale. All the collected data were statistically analyzed and presented as results. Results: The study involved 106 depressed elderly people with mean age of 66.1 years, who showed multiple significant associations in both sociodemographic and clinical factors with Geriatric depression of P < 0.05. A partial mediating effect with indirect effect size (β =0.70, 95% confidence interval CI: 0.31–1.32) of somatic symptoms on loneliness was associated with geriatric depression. Conclusion: This study highlighted that the severity of geriatric depression was directly associated with higher scores of loneliness, somatic symptom burden, and caregiver abuse.