Morbidities, health problems, health care seeking and utilization behaviour among elderly residing on urban areas of eastern Nepal: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background Morbidity increases with age and enhances the burden of health problems that result in new challenges to meet additional demands. In the ageing population, health problems, and health care utilization should be assessed carefully and addressed. This study aimed to identify chronic morbidities, health problems, health care seeking behaviour and health care utilization among the elderly. Methods We conducted a community based, cross-sectional study in urban areas of the Sunsari district using face-to-face interviews. A total of 530 elderly participants were interviewed and selected by a simple proportionate random sampling technique. Results About half, 48.3%, elderly were suffering from pre-existing chronic morbidities, of which, 30.9% had single morbidity, and 17.4% had multi-morbidities. This study unfurled more than 50.0% prevalence of health ailments like circulatory, digestive, eye, musculoskeletal and psychological problems each representing the burden of 68.7%, 68.3%, 66.2%, 65.8% and 55.7% respectively. Our study also found that 58.7% preferred hospitals as their first contact facility. Despite the preferences, 46.0% reported visiting traditional healers for treatment of their ailments. About 68.1% reported having difficulty seeking health care and 51.1% reported visits to a health care facility within the last 6 months period. The participants with pre-existing morbidity, health insurance, and an economic status above the poverty line were more likely to visit health care facilities. Conclusion Elderly people had a higher prevalence of health ailments, but unsatisfactory health care seeking and health care utilization behaviour. These need further investigation and attention by the public health system in order to provide appropriate curative and preventive health care to the elderly. There is an urgent need to promote geriatric health services and make them available at the primary health care level, the first level of contact with a national health system.

Health Service Utilization and Its Determinants among Senior Citizens in the Semiurban Area of Western Nepal: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Tis inconsistency might be due to the diference in perceiving pattern, variation in time of study period, and area as well. Te presence of chronic disease is a strong predictor of health service utilization, which is similar to other studies [4,20,28,[40][41][42][43]. Likewise, regular medication was another factor associated with health service utilization.…”

Pengembangan Instrumen Deteksi Kemunduran Bio, Psiko, Sosio, Spiritual pada Pasien Lanjut Usia

“…Penyakit degeneratif kronis yang diderita lansia termasuk proses menua juga berkontribusi terhadap munculnya berbagai hendaya yang makin memperberat kondisi kesehatan lansia sehari-hari. Hendaya yang sering mengiringi pertambahan usia pada lansia adalah gangguan penglihatan dan pendengaran, gangguan tidur, imobilisasi, gangguan keseimbangan, gangguan intelektual dan kognitif, malnutrisi, inkontinensia urin/fekal, infeksi, isolasi, polifarmasi, kemiskinan, disfungsi sexual dan gangguan thermoregulasi (pengaturan suhu tubuh) (Poudel et al, 2022).…”