Depression and Quality of Life among Urban Elderly in Dhaka City during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Objective: This study was conducted with the aim to determine whether there was any association between depression and quality of life among the urban elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: This study was conducted across some urban areas of Dhaka city namely Gulshan, Niketan and Mohakhali areas. 91 respondents aged 60 years and above residing in urban areas were interviewed once at one point in time. All the information was to be collected within the time frame. Hence the most appropriate study design in this case would be cross-sectional study design. The duration for the thesis work was 1 year, from 1st January to 31st December 2020. Method of sampling was convenient method of sampling. Data were collected by face-to-face interview and telephone interview.

Results: In case of clinical characteristics, elderly people aged 60 years and above participated. Mean age was 66.42 (SD± 5.106) years. Minimum and maximum age was respectively 60 years and 80 years. Among the 91 respondents, 48 (52.7%) were males and 43 (47.3%) were females. It is found that, 64 (70.3%) were married, 1 (1.1%) was unmarried, 24 (26.4%) were widowed, 2 (2.2%) were divorced. Of all the respondents, 34.1% were graduates and 24.2% were post graduates. Majority of respondents (84.6%) were the followers of Islam, followed by (11%) Hindus. Here, among the 91 respondents, some of them had only one disease, whereas some of them had more than one disease. To explain, 56 (31.8%) had Hypertension, 55 (31.3%) people had Diabetes Mellitus, 32 (18.2%) had cardiac problems, 13 (7.4%) suffered from stroke, 11 (6.3%) had chronic lung disease, 7 (4.0%) suffered from chronic kidney disease, 1 (0.6%) had cancer, and 1 (0.6%) had Alzheimer’s disease. In case of association between depression and psychological domain of quality of life, the highest mean score was found within those who had no depression (M=63.93), followed by mild depression (M=48.95), then moderate depression (M=40.71) and lastly severe depression (M=33.80). To see the impact of level of depression on psychological domain of quality of life, one-way between group ANOVA was conducted. There was statistically significant difference at p<0.05 in QOL for levels of depression: F (3, 87) = 14.019, p=0.00.