Family and Faith Are Best Anti-depressants for Nursing Home Residents - March 1997

When your next address is a nursing home, depression and a drop in self-esteem may become unwelcome new companions. What helps prevent becoming one of the 42% of nursing home residents who report feeling depressed?

For starters, strong family support was linked with less depression and higher self-esteem, found a study of 83 residents averaging age 80 in four New York City-area nursing homes. Also, the study found several key religious links which could help keep self-esteem strong and deter depression.

"Residents reporting frequent church attendance both before entering the nursing home and currently also had higher self-esteem," noted the researchers from Cornell Medical Center and Fordham University. These actively religious residents were less depressed and felt closer to their families -- the strong bonds that also enhanced self-esteem.

"Religiously committed individuals tend to perceive family more warmly, report greater marital satisfaction, and report greater satisfaction with family life in general," the researchers commented.

Feeling healthier made a difference in who was less depressed, findings confirmed in other studies, the researchers noted.

Yet the religious link also tied in with feeling healthier, since religious commitment can enhance coping with illness and reduce pain perception, noted the researchers. "Religious commitment has also been shown to help reduce psychological stress," commented Dr. David Larson, president of the National Institute for Healthcare Research.

Social support from friends helped stave off depression, but sadly more than two thirds of residents in the study said they had no friends, possibly lost through death or by moving away.

Being able to choose their nursing home also seemed to help reduce depression among the elderly surveyed. But the length of the nursing home stay made a further difference. Residents who lived in the home longer than five years tended to feel the most depressed, perhaps since this group also reported the lowest support from family members.

"Perceived social support from family, public religious activity, and length of stay in the home were related to self-esteem and to depression," the researchers concluded.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Commerford, Mary C., and Reznikoff, Marvin. (1996)."Relationship of Religion and Perceived Social Support to Self-Esteem and Depression in Nursing Home Residents." Journal of Psychology. 130:35-50.