Anxiety, depression and apathy in relation to the fragile situation

Abstract

This descriptive, transversal research studies the relationship between frailty in institutionalized old people and anxiety, depression and apathy in a 193 old people sample institutionalized in four old people’s homes. Frailty is measured with Short Physical Performance Battery; anxiety and depression with Goldberg scale; and apathy with Dementhia Apathy Interview and Rating. It is about a descriptive and transversal research that does not make any intervention on people participating and aims to establish if there is or there is not a relationship between variables, but not a causality relationship. It is shown that the three variables correlate with total punctuation in frailty scale and with all its subscales; so that, a higher frailty and/or dependency, corresponds to higher levels of anxiety, depression and apathy. There are also significant differences between frail and prefrail people groups in relation to apathy; and between dependent and prefrail groups in relation to anxiety and depression.

Keywords

• fragilidad
• ansiedad
• depresión
• apatía
• estado menta