Day care geriatric mental health services through social prescription by primary health care staff: A Randomized Control Trial at community centers, Chittoor district, A.P., India.

Abstract Background: Health issues among the elderly are inevitable. Mental health problems are common among them and, it is one of the most neglected areas of health. There is a felt need to develop strategies to meet the needs of elderly. Social prescribing is an effective strategy to improve the health and wellbeing of elderly. Hence, this study is planned to estimate the effectiveness of day care geriatric mental health services through social prescription on quality of life (QOL) of elderly aged 60 years and above in rural communities of Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh. Methods: It is a randomized controlled interventional trial, where elderly aged 60 years and above with no acute psychotic symptoms will be recruited from community areas of Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh. Eligible elderly will be directed to day care geriatric mental health services, where interventions will be planned based on the need assessment. Follow up will be done once in two months to identify the challenges in continuing day care geriatric mental health services. Cost details will be collected concurrently. Analysis will be done applying both intention to treat (ITT) and per protocol analysis. To examine the association between the participant’s characteristics and their QOL, uni-variate analysis will be performed. Thematic analysis will be done to analyse qualitative data where themes and sub-themes will be identified. Discussion Mental health services in geriatric population are a neglected area. Day care geriatric mental health services are essential to improve the Quality of living and also their physical and mental health. Trial registration: CTRI/2023/03/050503 dated 09/03/2023 under clinical trials registry- India version:1.0 dated 09/03/2023.