Relationship of Deterministic Thinking With Loneliness and Depression in the Elderly

Abstract

Objectives Deterministic thinking as a destructive factor in disrupting the balance of hope and fear plays an important role in mental health, especially depression and anxiety .This distortion is caused by cogni-tive inflexibility in the mind. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between determin-istic thinking and depression and sense of loneliness in older adults. Methods & Materials The type of study was descriptive-correlational. The population included all the older adults over 60 years who were living in a nursing home in 2014-15 in Karaj. Of them, 142 individu-als were selected (male and female) by available sampling method. They were then asked to respond to deterministic thinking questionnaire, Geriatric Depression Scale, and UCLA loneliness scale. The data col-lected were imported to AMOS software and analyzed by path analysis model. Results The results of the path analysis model showed that deterministic thinking has a significant and positive relationship with depression (P=0.001) and sense of loneliness variable (P=0.001). It also has a significant effect on the prediction of sense of loneliness and depression with effect size of 0.26 and 0.28, respectively. The mean age was 67.2 years for women and 65.4 years for men. The mean score determin-istic thinking, sense of loneliness and depression in women and men respectively were 118/50, 70/80, and 12/55. Conclusion According to the results, it can be said that deterministic thinking has a significant relationship with depression and sense of loneliness in older adults. So, deterministic thinking acts as a predictor of depression and sense of loneliness in older adults. Therefore, psychological interventions for challeng-ing cognitive distortion of deterministic thinking and attention to mental health in older adult are very important.