Elderly Well-being in a Rural Community in North Central Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Globally, the population of elderly is increasing and their well-being is becoming a public health concern. In Nigeria, poverty is widespread and elderly persons are at higher risk. Unfortunately, Nigerian Government does not provide social security to elderly and the supports from the family are fading out. Therefore, the well-being of elderly is compromised. This study was designed to determine the prevalence and identify predictors of elderly well-being in a rural community in Nigeria. The study was cross-sectional in design and adopted multi-stage sampling procedures to select 1217 elderly aged 65+. Well-being was captured using scores from four domains; social, psychological, physical and environmental. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square and logistic regression models. Mean age of the elderly was 72.3±8.4years and 65.2% were females. About 49.1% of the respondents have poor well-being. Poor well-being increases with age, but reduces as level of education increases. The identified predictors of poor well-being were; age (β=0.208;S.E=0.056), children ever born (β=0.672;S.E=0.079), children alive (β=-0.596;S.E=0.275), marital status (β=0.260;S.E=0.112), financial support from children (β=0.208;S.E=0.056), children visit by gender (CV) (β=-0.545;S.E=0.095), children living with elderly (β=-0.508;S.E=0.169) and having enough money to meet daily needs (HDHN) (-1.357;S.E=0.179). Elderly who; do not receive any financial assistance from their children (FAC) (OR=2.4;C.I=1.7-3.2) and those who were separated (OR=6.2;C.I=1.3-30.0) were more likely to experience poor well-being than those who receive and those who never married respectively. The likelihood of poor well-being was lower among elderly who HDHN (OR=0.2;C.I=0.1-0.3) and those who don’t have any of their children living with them (OR=0.7;C.I=0.5-0.9). Multiple logistic regression models were generated at 8th iterations. High proportion of the elderly in the community has poor well-being. While developing policies aim at improving elderly well-being in Nigeria, government should include; age, marital status, FAC, CV, children living with elderly and HDHN as part of their key variables.