The High Prevalence of Depression in Climacteric Women and their Most Significant Complaints

The primary purpose of this study is to observe the prevalence of depression in climacteric women and their self-evaluation of depression causes. Depression is defined as a normal human emotion, a clinical symptom and a group of syndromes or disturbances characterized by a painful or unpleasant affective state. The design of this cross-sectional study is inquiry descriptive. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) questionnaire was administered to 48 climacteric women (aged 45 to 65) serviced by the Centers for Psycho and Social Attention (CAPS) of Specialized Mental Medicine in Sorocaba.Checking the mean and frequency distribution, the climacteric women presented a prevalence of 37.5% of moderate depression (BDIindex = 24.39 ± 3.13), and 47.92% of severe depression (BDIindex = 38.13 ± 6.78). Concerning the symptoms, Spearman rank order correlation was found as the highest concerns, hierarchically: in- decision (r = 0.72, p < 0.001), anhedonia (r = 0.66, p < 0.001), guilt (r = 0.63, p < 0.001), crying (r = 0.62, p < 0.001), self-esteem (r = 0.60, p < 0.001), in- utility (r = 0.59, p < 0.001), self-criticism (r = 0.58, p < 0.001) and loss of concentration (r = 0.57, p < 0.001). In these CAPS climacteric women, the incidence of depression was judged quite high (86% ranging from mild to severe), owing mostly to hesitation, anhedonia, guilt, sobbing, and self-esteem, followed by inutility, self-criticism, and lack of attention.