Older Adults' Acceptance of Psychological, Pharmacological, and Combination Treatments for Geriatric Depression

We examined older adults' ratings of the acceptability of geriatric depression treatments. We presented 120 community-dwelling participants with vignettes describing an older adult experiencing either mild to moderate or severe depression. Participants rated the acceptability of three different treatments: cognitive therapy (CT), antidepressant medication (AM), and a combination treatment of CT and AM (COM). For general acceptability, participants rated COM as a more acceptable treatment for depression than both CT and AM. With respect to perceived negative aspects of treatments, they rated CT as a more acceptable treatment for mild to moderate depression than both AM and COM. Participants rated both COM and CT as more acceptable treatments for severe depression than AM. Results indicate that combining psychotherapy and AM may be viewed as most acceptable by community-dwelling, nondepressed older adults.