ABSTRACT

The suicide rate among senior populations is much higher than any other age groups in most advanced societies, and depression and risk for elderly suicide is closely related. There are a number of risk factors for depression and/or suicidal ideation in older adults, the most prevalent factors for them would be self-perceived health status, financial difficulty, and quality of relationships with intimate people such as family members. This study was to examine whether the factors would be the potential predictors for suicidal risk with the community dwelling older adults. As expected, the most powerful predictor was the self-perceived health status, and the quality of relationships was followed by it. However, there found different findings when data were analysed separately by gender, and the findings were discussed in the context of social support or networks.