Quality of life among institutionalized and non-institutionalized elderly: A comparative study

Abstract

Ageing is a natural process that causes several changes in social, hormonal, psychological, and physical circumstances. A person’s ageing is influenced by a variety of factors, including physiological, social, psychological, economic, environmental, and cultural factors, all of which have a substantial impact on the elderly’s quality of life. The present study investigated the quality of life among institutionalized and non-institutionalized elderly in Hubli-Dharwad taluk during 2021-22. The sample comprised 180 elderly (ninety from institutionalized setting and ninety from noninstitutionalized setting) aged 65 years and above were drawn through the purposive sampling method. The self-structured questionnaire, Older people’s Quality of life-35 and Agarwal’s socio-economic status scale were used for collecting information. The results revealed that the female population (55.60%) was more among the institutionalized elderly, while the male population (54.90%) was more among the non-institutionalized elderly. As per age of the elderly 75-84 years old were more (43.40%) among institutionalized elderly and 62 years old were more (68.90%) among non-institutionalized elderly. When it comes to education, most of the institutionalized elderly were studied up tothe 10th standard (33.30%) but most of the non-institutionalized elderly were illiterates (32.20%). According to socio-economic status (SES), most of the institutionalized elderly (38.90%) had upper middle SES category and most of the non-institutionalized elderly (51.10%) had lower middle SES category.The quality of life was high (58.90%) among non-institutionalized elderly as compared to the institutionalized elderly (35.60%).