A study to assess the prevalence of major health problems among elderly at selected old age home with a view to develop information booklet on management of major health problems.

Abstract

- Abstract: Title of the Topic: A study to assess the prevalence of major health problems among elderly at selected old age home with a view to develop information booklet on management of major health problems. Objectives: To assess the prevalence of major health problems among elderly. To test the association between the prevalence of major health problems among elderly with their selected background variables. Methodology: A descriptive study was adopted for the present study. A sample of 47 elderly was selected using non probability convenient sampling technique. A structured checklist was used to collect the data and the collected data was analyzed and interpreted based on the descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The overall mean prevalence rate of some major health problems is as follows: cardiovascular disease (48.14%), diabetes mellitus (50%), asthma (39%), vision problems (43.4%), hearing loss (34%), osteoarthritis and osteoporosis (72.34%), dementia (46.78%). High prevalence was found in osteoporosis 34 (72.34%), and diabetes mellitus 18 (38.29%). Moderate prevalence was found in vision problems 21 (44.6%), cardio vascular problems 26 (55.32%), where as low prevalence was found in hearing loss 31 (65.95%), dementia 18 (38.29%) and asthma 21 (44.68%). A significant association was found between the prevalence of diabetes mellitus with age. The obtained chi square value was 9.610 which was highly significant at p<0.05. Conclusion: The study attempted to assess the prevalence of major health problems among elderly and found that osteoarthritis and osteoporosis 34 (72.34%) and diabetes mellitus 18 (38.29%) are highly prevalent among elderly. There was a significant association found between diabetes mellitus with their age.