Determinants of continuing mental health service use among older persons diagnosed with depressive disorders in general hospitals: latent class analysis and GEE

BACKGROUND: Prevalence of depression in older persons was a leading cause of disability. This group has the lowest access to service and retention in care compared to other age groups. This study aimed to explore continuing mental health service use and examined the predictive power of the mental health service delivery system and individual factors on mental health service use among older persons diagnosed with depressive disorders. METHODS: We employed an analytic cross-sectional study design of individual and organizational variables in 12 general hospitals selected using multi-stratified sampling. There were 3 clusters comprising community hospitals, advanced and standard hospitals, and university hospitals. Participants in each group were 150 persons selected by purposive sampling. We included older persons with a first or recurring diagnosis of a depressive disorder in the last 6 to 12 months of the data collection date. Data at the individual level included socio-demographic characteristics, Charlson Comorbidity Index, Attitude toward Depression and its treatment, and perceived social support. Data at the organizational level had hospital level, nurse competency, nurse-patient ratio, and appointment reminders. Descriptive statistics, Pearson chi-square test, latent class analysis (LCA), and marginal logistic regression model using generalized estimating equation (GEE) were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: The continuing mental health service use among older persons diagnosed with depressive disorders was 54%. The latent class analysis of four variables in the mental health services delivery organization yielded distinct and interpretable findings in two groups: high and low resource organization. The marginal logistic multivariable regression model using GEE found that organizational group and attitude toward depression and its treatment were significantly associated with mental health service use (p-value = 0.046; p-value = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that improving continuing mental health services use in older persons diagnosed with depressive disorders should emphasize specialty resources of the mental health services delivery system and attitude toward depression and its treatment.