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Help‐seeking experiences of older adults with a diagnosis of moderate depression

Depression is the most prevalent mental illness among older adults. However, help‐seeking by older adults is frequently delayed, resulting in longer duration of untreated symptoms, poorer health outcomes, and consequent higher healthcare use. Early help‐seeking and access to appropriate support bene...

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Autores principales: Polacsek, Meg, Boardman, Gayelene H., McCann, Terence V.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8351636/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30120874
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/inm.12531
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author Polacsek, Meg
Boardman, Gayelene H.
McCann, Terence V.
author_facet Polacsek, Meg
Boardman, Gayelene H.
McCann, Terence V.
author_sort Polacsek, Meg
collection PubMed
description Depression is the most prevalent mental illness among older adults. However, help‐seeking by older adults is frequently delayed, resulting in longer duration of untreated symptoms, poorer health outcomes, and consequent higher healthcare use. Early help‐seeking and access to appropriate support benefits individuals, while providing better outcomes from health systems constrained by limited resources. The aim of this study, which is abstracted from a larger study, was to identify the factors that inhibited and enabled formal help‐seeking in older adults with a diagnosis of moderate depression. Corbin and Strauss’ approach to grounded theory informed data collection and analysis. Two themes and related subthemes concerning help‐seeking barriers and facilitators were abstracted from the data. Help‐seeking barriers were attributable to stigma, self‐motivation, accessing formal support, ageism, and difficulty obtaining an initial diagnosis. Help‐seeking facilitators were accepting personal responsibility, mental health literacy, therapeutic alliances, and informal support. Findings have implications for the role of mental health nurses, who are well‐placed to provide support to community‐based older adults with depression. More broadly, mental health nurses and other clinicians should seek to reduce help‐seeking barriers and implement ways to facilitate help‐seeking in this cohort.
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spelling pubmed-83516362021-08-15 Help‐seeking experiences of older adults with a diagnosis of moderate depression Polacsek, Meg Boardman, Gayelene H. McCann, Terence V. Int J Ment Health Nurs Original Articles Depression is the most prevalent mental illness among older adults. However, help‐seeking by older adults is frequently delayed, resulting in longer duration of untreated symptoms, poorer health outcomes, and consequent higher healthcare use. Early help‐seeking and access to appropriate support benefits individuals, while providing better outcomes from health systems constrained by limited resources. The aim of this study, which is abstracted from a larger study, was to identify the factors that inhibited and enabled formal help‐seeking in older adults with a diagnosis of moderate depression. Corbin and Strauss’ approach to grounded theory informed data collection and analysis. Two themes and related subthemes concerning help‐seeking barriers and facilitators were abstracted from the data. Help‐seeking barriers were attributable to stigma, self‐motivation, accessing formal support, ageism, and difficulty obtaining an initial diagnosis. Help‐seeking facilitators were accepting personal responsibility, mental health literacy, therapeutic alliances, and informal support. Findings have implications for the role of mental health nurses, who are well‐placed to provide support to community‐based older adults with depression. More broadly, mental health nurses and other clinicians should seek to reduce help‐seeking barriers and implement ways to facilitate help‐seeking in this cohort. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018-08-18 2019-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8351636/ /pubmed/30120874 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/inm.12531 Text en © 2018 The Authors International Journal of Mental Health Nursing published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Inc. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Polacsek, Meg
Boardman, Gayelene H.
McCann, Terence V.
Help‐seeking experiences of older adults with a diagnosis of moderate depression
title Help‐seeking experiences of older adults with a diagnosis of moderate depression
title_full Help‐seeking experiences of older adults with a diagnosis of moderate depression
title_fullStr Help‐seeking experiences of older adults with a diagnosis of moderate depression
title_full_unstemmed Help‐seeking experiences of older adults with a diagnosis of moderate depression
title_short Help‐seeking experiences of older adults with a diagnosis of moderate depression
title_sort help‐seeking experiences of older adults with a diagnosis of moderate depression
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8351636/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30120874
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/inm.12531
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