title: A community study on emotional distress among the elderly in Israel.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The elderly constitute a group at risk for elevated emotional distress. The Ministry of Health, the Central Bureau of Statistics and other national agencies jointly conducted a survey to investigate the health status of the elderly, including emotional distress and selective determinants.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This paper reports the distribution of the emotional distress mean scores by socio-demographic and health-related variables.
  
  
  METHODS
  5,055 ethnically diverse elderly residing in the community were interviewed with a questionnaire comprising socio-demographic and health promotion behavior items, in addition to the 12 item-GHQ scale. Univariate and multivariate methods of analyses were applied.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Several variables that were associated with higher mean scores of emotional distress were identified, among them, female gender, living without a partner, and those with chronic medical conditions and impaired life-styles; 38% of the variance was explained by the study variables.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Health planners and clinicians, including mental health consultants, may utilize these findings to develop individual and collective programs of intervention aimed at reducing emotional distress, particularly among the more vulnerable elderly.
authors.affiliation: Planning Surveys and Evaluation, Ministry of Health, Jerusalem, Israel. anat.shemesh@moh.health.gov.il
authors.forename: Annarosa Anat
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Shemesh
authors.forename: Itzhak
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Levav
authors.forename: Tzvia
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Blumstein
authors.forename: Ilya
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Novikov
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003156:Community Mental Health Services; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires