This study describes the mental health status of community-living frail elders in Michigan and identifies subgroups who are vulnerable to mental health problems. We analyzed the baseline assessment data collected from older adults admitted to two community-based long-term care programs in Michigan (N = 18,939). Results show that 40.5% of the sample have recognized mental disorders, 39.6% use psychotropic medications, 24.5% have probable depression, and 1.4% have self-injury thoughts or attempts. Frail elders who are white, younger, and female--as well as those who experience more pain, disease burden, cognitive impairment and IADL limitations--are more prone to psychological distress. Mental health care is greatly needed by community-living frail elders.Dr. Li received support for this study from the University of Michigan Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (AG024824). Dr. Conwell was supported in part by NIMH grants R25 MH68564-01 (Eric Caine, PI) and R24 MH07164 (Yeates Conwell, PI). The authors thank the Michigan Department of Community Health for making the data available, as well as Mary James, MA, Brant Fries, PhD, and Kristina Szafara, PhD, for their assistance in accessing and extracting the data.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65121/1/MentalhealthstatusTG-revfinal16-3-07.pd
