Background: Malaysia is facing a hypertension upsurge among the elderly. Beta-blockers as hypertension treatment is commonly used although earlier studies reported that beta-blockers cause depression symptoms in hypertension patients. Depression symptom in elderly are often overlook as society misinterprets depression symptoms as a part of aging process. This study aims to investigate the association of beta-blockers usage and the depression symptoms in elderly hypertension patients in Hospital Kuala Lumpur.

Materials and methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in Hospital Kuala Lumpur. A total of 211 elderly patients with hypertension was recruited for this study. Data was collected using questionnaire and depression symptoms were assessed using Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). 

Results: Analysis have shown a significant association of depression symptom and lipophilic beta-blockers in elderly patients with hypertension (p=0.007,c²=14.03). There was no significant different for depression symptoms in elderly patients above 60 years old compared to below 60 years old (p=0.144,c²=6.85). However a trend towards higher BDI score of 11-16 and 17-20 were more common in elderly patients with hypertension, which considered as mild mood disturbance (63.0%) and borderline depression (85.0%) respectively.

Conclusions: This study suggest that the usage of lipophilic beta-blockers may have depression effects on hypertensive patients. Elderly hypertensive patients were more affected with mild mood disturbance and borderline clinical depression.

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thanks all Hospital Kuala Lumpur patients  that take part in this study. Thanks to Hospital Kuala Lumpur and Management & Science University for the support given to this study.