1. Introduction
Depression is a common functional mental illness seen in Hong Kong elderly. A relatively large proportion of elderly aged seventy and above, ranging from 9.5% to 29.2% of men and 15.8% to 41.1% of women, were defined as depressed by a
depression screening instrument (Chi et al., 2005; Woo et al.,1994). The prevalence increased significantly with their age
(Chou and Chi, 2005)