Depression in Climacteric Women: Most Meaningful Symptoms

Abstract

Background: With population aging occurring worldwide, promoting climacteric women’s health has become the object of important studies. Purpose: Observing the prevalence of depression in climacteric women and their self-evaluation of the depression factors is the main goal of this study. Design: This cross-sectional research is enquiry descriptive. Methods: The sample was composed of 48 climacteric women (between 45 and 65 years old) non-selected volunteers, served by the Centers for Psycho and Social Attention (CAPS) of Specialized Mental Medicine, in Sorocaba, via the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) questionnaire. Results: Checking the mean and frequency distribution, the climacteric women presented a prevalence of 37.5% of moderate depression (BDIindex = 24.39 ± 3.13), and 47.92% of severe depression (BDIindex = 38.13 ± 6.78). Concerning the symptoms, Spearman rank order correlation was found as the highest concerns, hierarchically: indecision (r = 0.72, p < 0.001), anhedonia (r = 0.66, p < 0.001), guilt (r = 0.63, p < 0.001), crying (r = 0.62, p < 0.001), self-esteem (r = 0.60, p < 0.001), inutility (r = 0.59, p < 0.001), self-criticism (r = 0.58, p < 0.001) and loss of concentration (r = 0.57, p < 0.001). Conclusions: The prevalence of depression in these CAPS climacteric women was considered very high (86% ranking from moderate to severe) caused mostly by indecision, anhedonia, guilt, crying and self-esteem, followed by inutility, self-criticism and loss of concentration.