Aging & Social Change: Eleventh Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

Geriatric depression is a common and serious mental health condition that often goes unrecognized. When undetected, depression worsens one’s health prognosis, increases mortality and medical costs. With the rapidly growing aging population in Canada, students in health professions, defined in the Health Professions Act of Alberta, will be increasingly working with older adults with depression. Evidence suggests that web-based education improves the accuracy with which various members of health professions recognize signs of geriatric depression. Conceived by the collaborative effort of the School of Social Work, the Department of Nursing Science and the Department of Interprofessional Education and Simulation Learning at MacEwan University, Canada, this study aims to enhance knowledge and skills about geriatric depression among social work and psychiatric nursing students through the cost-effective web-based learning module with simulated case studies. There are three research questions: 1) Does the web-based screening training for geriatric depression improve the knowledge of social work and psychiatric nursing students about geriatric depression symptoms, assessment methods, and treatment options? 2) Does the web-based training improve students’ confidence in recognizing signs of geriatric depression? 3) Are there significant differences in knowledge and confidence levels among students from different disciplines before and after taking the web-based module? Currently at the end of the data collection process, the study will be concluded in summer 2021. Findings and implications for practice, research, and education are shared with the conference audience.