Depression. The missing diagnosis in the elderly.

Depression has been a significant problem in the elderly. The purposes of this study were to determine the incidence of depression in elderly clients who are homebound and to investigate whether home healthcare nurses make depression-related nursing diagnoses. The Geriatric Depression Scale was done on 40 subjects from an urban home health agency. Results of the study showed that although 27.5% of the subjects scored in the depressed range on the GDS, home health nurses failed 100% of the time to document any depression-related nursing diagnoses.