Publication:

Awareness of geriatric welfare services among rural elderly population

Background Elderly population suffers from income loss, decreased social role and increased dependence along with physical and mental problems associated with ageing. Geriatric welfare services are aimed to address this problem related to old age. The main focus of the existing geriatric welfare services are below the poverty line elderly population. However, the benefit from these services can be obtained if elderly population have awareness about these welfare services. Main objective of the study was to study the awareness regarding geriatric welfare services among rural elderly population and its association with gender.

Methods Community based cross- sectional study was carried out at field practice area of Rural Health Training Centre, JN Medical College, AMU, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India by using systematic random sampling with probability proportionate to size among 225 rural elderly individuals using pretested and predesigned questionnaire. Data analysis was done using SPSS 20. Chi square test was used. P value <0.05 was considered significant.

Results Among the geriatric welfare services 28.9% were aware of the social security schemes, 84% were aware of the special govt. facilities, 35.6% were aware of the health insurance schemes. Males had significant higher awareness of geriatric welfare services than the females.

Conclusions The study revealed that awareness of geriatric welfare services among rural elderly population was very low that needs to be addressed to improve utilization of these services.