Publication:

Hypertension and QOL among rural elderly

Background Aging is a natural phenomenon and quality of life among elderly gets compromised. The biggest killers among old age are heart disease and stroke and greatest cause of morbidity are sensory abilities, Diabetes and depression. The life of elderly gets compromised when they start facing problems to fulfil basic requirements such as social relations; personal care, nutrition and accommodation added to old age health problems.

Methods It was a community based cross sectional study from June to September 2017 and study duration was for 3 months. Sample size calculated was 201 and was rounded off to 230. Snowball sampling technique was used. Data regarding socio-demographic profile and morbidity status was collected using semi structured questionnaire. QOL was assessed using WHO QOL OLD Questionnaire after informed consent. All those aged above 60 years were included in the study and those who are chronically sick and beds ridden were excluded from the study. Data were entered in Microsoft excel and analyzed using SPSS v22. Level of significance was defined with p value less than 0.05. Mean and standard deviation were calculated and to compare between various group Independent t test applied.

Results Among 231 study participants, 122 (48.8%) belonged to 60-65 years age group, 126 (54.5%) were females, 130 (56.3%) were illiterates and 119 (51.6%) were completely dependent financially on family members, 97 (41.9%) were Hypertensive. Statistically significant difference was found in AUT domain where non-hypertensives had higher scores. Male hypertensives comparatively had better scores; literate hypertensives had better scores compared to illiterate hypertensives in SAB, AUT, PPF, INT domains.

Conclusions Hypertension affects the quality of life and age, marital status, education also has some effect on the QOL in elderly stressing the importance of addressing the issues in regular clinics.