Morbidity pattern of elderly women of rural North Karnataka: a community based cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: With the increasing life expectancy, the population around the world is growing old at a higher rate. Ensuring their quality of life and addressing their health care needs is a major challenge ahead. Elderly women are more vulnerable and there is a dearth for information regarding their health problems in India. Therefore, this study was undertaken focusing on the health problems of rural elderly women. The objective of the study was to assess the morbidity pattern of rural elderly women.Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted in the rural field practice area of Shri B M Patil Medical College, Vijayapura from November 2015 to February 2016. A house-to-house survey was done and 200 women aged ≥60 years were included in the study. They were interviewed using pretested and predesigned questionnaire after obtaining informed consent. Information regarding demographic profile, present or past illness, economic history and physical activity of daily living were collected. Analysis was done using SPSS v.16 and data was represented using proportions and percentages.Results: Majority of the participants were illiterate (96.4%). Most (83.6%) of them were financially dependent. Most common chronic illness was arthritis (73.3%) and visual problem (58.8%).Conclusions: Our study reveals majority of the elderly women are suffering from one or multiple chronic illnesses. As a matter of fact, there is an urgent need to develop better health care services for the elderly women residing in rural areas.

An epidemiological study of psychosocial factors influencing rural geriatric women in north Karnataka: A cross-sectional study

“…As revealed by several studies done on the geriatric population in India, majority of them were unemployed and illiterate [7] . Many like to argue that an increase in the ageing population can result in a variety of undesirable macroeconomic phenomena.…”