A STUDY TO ASSESS QUALITY OF LIFE OF ELDERLY RESIDING IN FIELD PRACTICE AREA OF URBAN HEALTH TRAINING CENTER OF SMS MEDICAL COLLEGE JAIPUR

Abstract

Background: In India, as per the “National Policy on Older People” a senior citizen is defined as a person who is 60 years old or above. The World Health Organization (WHO) in 1998 defined Quality of Life as: “The individual’s perception of his or her position in life, with in the cultural context and value system he or she lives in, and in relation to his or her goals, expectations parameters and social relations”. As per the WHO report (2013), there are more than 600 million elderlies at a global level. The elderly population will be doubled by 2025 and rise to two billion by 2050. According to the 2001 census, India was home to more than 77 million people aged 60 years and over. One of the greatest tasks of public health is to improve the Quality of Life (QOL) of geriatric population through which we can increase the life expectancy of the elderly by every year.

Aim and Objectives:  To know the quality of life of the elderly and its influencing socio-demographic factors living in rural field practice area Naila, Jaipur city with objectives like assess and compare the quality of life and socio-demographic factors affecting quality of life of elderly

Materials and Methods: Urban field practice area is divided into 4 areas namely Katputli Nagar, Bais godown, Susheel Pura and Bhojpura covers a population of 15190. Of these, 25 elderlies from each area were systemic randomly selected and interviewed to complete the sample of 100 people. A pretested semi‑structured questionnaire having two sections was used to collect the information where the first part included information regarding sociodemographic profile and the second part comprised of a 26‑point WHOQOL ‑BREF questionnaire.

Results: A maximum proportion of the study subjects was male (65%) with age group of   60-69 years is 69% and ≥70 years is 31%. In regards to educational status 38% were illiterates, literacy is high in urban area with 62% participants were literate. Most of subjects belonged to middle class (45%), upper middle class (35%) of socioeconomic status (SES-III) and least in lower middle (4%) (Modified BG Prasad’s classification). Perceived Quality of Life (QOL) were 46% good for elderly living in urban area. While in area subject only 13% perceive poor QOL and 33% perceived neither poor nor good QOL while only 52% has satisfied QOL. In urban area highest mean score present in psychological domain (66.18 ± 8.274) and lowest in environmental domain (60.65 ± 9.691) of QOL.

Conclusions: Quality of life is a multidimensional concept. Education and financial dependency were found to be the possible determinants of QOL. More extensive studies are recommended to identify other factors affecting QOL.