High prevalence of anxiety symptoms in hospitalized geriatric patients

Objective To examine the prevalence of anxiety symptoms in hospitalized geriatric patients. Design Controlled cross-sectional study. Subjects Ninety-eight geriatric in-patients and 68 healthy home-dwelling controls of similar age recruited from senior citizen centres. Outcome measure Anxiety measured as a current emotional state by Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Results The geriatric patients scored significantly higher than the controls. Applying Spielberger's recommended cut-off of 39/40 on the STAI sumscore, 41% of the female and 47% of the male geriatric patients might be suspected of suffering from significant anxiety symptoms. Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease tended to score higher; otherwise no relationship was found between the STAI sumscore and type of chronic somatic disease, nor between the STAI sumscore and number of drugs in regular use. Conclusions STAI proved feasible for use in the elderly. The scoring on the STAI is high in geriatric in-patients. Further studies are needed to clarify to what extent this relates to a high prevalence of anxiety disorders. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.