Title

Comparison of Health and Illness Patterns of Community-Dwelling Veterans with Those Living in Institutional Settings.

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Date

2012

Disciplines

Nursing

Abstract

Background: Depression in the elderly has been a growing concern in the geriatric field. With the elderly population continually growing, the amount of inpatient services needed to adequately care for this population will grow with it. Current research supports that depression rates do increase when geriatric people move from community living to inpatient living.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the pattern of change in depression scores when veterans move from community living to an inpatient setting.

Method: This retrospective descriptive research design uses a secondary analysis of data from existing health records from the St. Cloud VA Medical Center. Both inpatient and outpatient population records were searched for the inclusion criteria of having transitioned from community living to the VA inpatient setting. Descriptive statistics (mean, median, mode) were used to analyze continuous data. Nonparametric data were analyzed using Chi square tests.

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