Global prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress in the elderly population: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Several preliminary studies have been conducted in the field of the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress in the elderly population. These studies have examined the prevalence in limited geographic areas with small sample sizes. Also, there are many limitations in the meta-analysis studies. The objective of the present study was to synthesize the global prevalence statistics of depression, anxiety, and stress in the elderly population through a systematic review and meta-analysis.

The present systematic review included retrieval of primary studies from the oldest relevant study up to 2023. To find the relevant studies, international databases such as Scopus, Embase, PubMed, and Web of Science (WoS) were systematically searched. Also, a manual search was performed through the Google Scholar search engine and a review of the sources of related articles. The qualitative assessment of the studies was conducted using the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) checklist. Due to a high heterogeneity among the study results, a Random Effects model was chosen.