Varying depression and religious practice among Thai elderly: A longitudinal study

Thailand ageing society has been occurred since 2005, health and well-being of the elderly is a crucial concerned. Number of research reveals that critical factors effected the elderly depression including physical health, demographic and socio-economic of the elderly and religious practices. This study aims to examine whether the varying depression in older population is determined by religious, it’s expect that religious activities will have a negative relationship with depression variability. The study based on a longitudinal data set, 636 elderly aged sixty and over, who were followed up since 2005 thru 2011. The depression is measured through Thai EURO-D scale. Our findings support that religion acts as a protection mechanism for the elderly. In addition, financial satisfaction has significant impacts on improvement, deterioration, healthy or chronic depression status of the elderly. Female are more likely than male elderly to get the depression, and the depression increased with the elderly’s age too. This study suggests that not only roles of the religion and financial security that need to be seriously enhanced, but also the depression prevention mechanism needs to taken into account the sex and age of the elderly.