The coloured elderly in Cape Town--a psychosocial, psychiatric and medical community survey. Part II. Prevalence of psychiatric disorders.

A study of the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among 139 non-institutionalized Coloured persons aged 65 years and over was undertaken. Standard instruments, namely the Present State Examination and the Mini-Mental State Examination, were used with modifications. Dementia was judged to be present in 8.6% and severe in 3.6% of the subjects. Other psychiatric disorders (apart from alcoholism) were present in 24%, depression being the most common (16.5%). The prevalence of paranoid illness (2.2%) may be partly explained by the high rate of alcoholism among the men (15%). Most of the 16% who had previously received psychiatric inpatient treatment were judged to be disordered at present, and a relatively small proportion of the respondents (6%) were currently on psychotropic medication, with only 1 subject receiving antidepressants.