Proceedings of The 4th International Conference on Modern Research in Social Sciences
Year: 2021
DOI:
Some peculiarities of the link between visual impairment level and depression
Ina Marija Sesciliene, Vida Ostaseviciene, Lina Kreismonaite
ABSTRACT:
Individuals with visual impairments are at greater risk to have the mind-related health problems. Depression is a rather common mood disorder that might determine affection of our feelings, thoughts and daily activities. It is caused by a combination of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors. The main risk factors include personal or family history of depression; major life changes, trauma or stress; certain physical illnesses and medications. On the whole due to the lack of the studies that aim at better understanding of the visually impaired people in Lithuania, our study on the subject is very topical. The study involved 61 Lithuanian residents experiencing visual impairment of different level. Some of our findings – 53% of the visually impaired persons, who participated in the research, were experiencing different level of depression (noted that according to self-reported expression of depression features 13% of cases might be recognized as severe depression), visually impaired men tend to experience more depression features than visually impaired women. Some factors might reduce risk of experiencing depression features – younger age, having child, employment or training, physical and /or leisure activities, higher level of income, involvement in the social life of the community of persons with disabilities.
Keywords: cognitive, somatic and social factors of depression; level of disability of visually impaired person; person’s well-being.