How Older Adults Combine Medical and Experiential Notions of Depression

Past research has suggested that patients might not accept depression treatment in part because of differences between patient and doctor understandings of depression. In this article, we use a cultural models approach to explore how older adults incorporate clinical and experiential knowledge into their model of depression. We conducted semistructured interviews about depression with 19 patients aged 65 years and older who were identified by their physicians as depressed. We found that whereas older adults viewed as helpful the doctor's ability to identify symptoms and "put it all together" into a diagnosis, they felt that this viewpoint omitted important information about the etiology and feeling of depression grounded in embodied experience and social context. Our findings suggest that more emphasis on issues related to the etiology of depression, the effect of depression on social relationships, and emotions emanating from depression might lead to more acceptable depression treatments for older adults.