Investigation of outpatients with depression disorder in general hospital and related analysis of social support

Abstract

Objective To investigate the prevalence of depression in outpatients, and discuss the relationship between the prevalence and social support in general hospitals. Methods 468 policlinic internal patients in Affiliated Hospital of Taishan Medical University were selected to perform the assessment on the depression disorder and social support by MINI-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI)(Chinese version), and SPSS18.0 software system was used to process the data. Results The detection rate of depression disorder for policlinic internal patients was 25%(among them, 7.69% suffered from recurrent depressive disorder, 1.26% suffered from dysthymia). The scores of objective support(8.79±2.11), subjective support(21.41±5.22) and exploitability of support(6.54±1.88) for patients with depression were all significantly lower than the scores of patients without depression((11.19±2.55), (24.39±4.38), (7.63±2.07), P<0.01). Recurrent depressive disorder and dysthymia were negatively correlated with subjective support, objective support, and exploitability of support (P<0.05). The regression analysis showed that marriage and disease category and objective support were highly dangerous factors for outpatients with depression disorder. Conclusion The sickness rate of depression disorder among outpatients in general hospitals is high. The exploitability of support by patients with depression disorder is significantly lower than that of patients without depression disorder. Recurrent depressive disorder and dysthymia are negatively correlated with social support. Marriage, disease category and objective suppor are the major influencing factors. Key words: General hospital; Outpatient; Depression disorder; Social support