Socio-demographic profile and health care seeking behaviour of rural geriatric population of Allahabad district of UP: A cross sectional study

Abstract

Background: World population ageing is enduring, the proportion of older persons has been rising steadily, from 7 per cent in 1950 to 11 per cent in 2007, with an expected rise to reach 22 percent in 2050. Globally the population of older persons is growing at a rate of 2.6 per cent per year, considerably faster than the population as a whole which is increasing at 1.1 percent annually. The issue of health care-seeking (or medical-care) behaviour is crucial to all society. Objective: To know the Socio-demographic distribution of elderly population in rural area, observe the Health seeking behaviour of the rural elderly and to know the available health care services in rural area of Uttar Pradesh. Materials and Methods:A community based Cross sectional study was conducted from October 2010 to June 2011. Persons aged 60 years and above were selected by multistage random sampling. The minimum Sample size of 400 was calculated using formula 4pq/d2 and finally a total of 411 individuals were studied. The data was analyzed by means, proportions and Chi-square test, p value less than 0.05(p<0.05) at 95% confidence interval, was consider for significant, SPSS Version 12 Statistical Software was used to analyze the data. Results: Out of the 411 elderly persons, 214 (52.1%) were males and 197(47.9%) were females. Mean age for the entire study population was 69.2 years with a standard deviation of 7.8 years. Majority of the elderly population were illiterate (70.1%). Higher proportion of females was illiterate (92.4%) as compared to males (49.5%). Among the 411 elderly persons, 188 (45.7%) sought treatment from private practitioner and private hospital, 133 (32.3%) from non registered practitioner (Quack), only 77 (18.9%) sought treatment from Government hospital and remaining 13 (3.1%) used home remedies or sought help from traditional healers. Conclusion: Majority of the geriatric subjects were in the age group of 60 to 69 years. Awareness must be generated among the elderly regarding the problems related to the ageing, strict implementation of legislation on parents' care by their children and Promotion of income.

Morbidity pattern and health-seeking behaviour among the senior citizens in a selected urban area of Bangladesh: A cross-sectional study

“…Hospitals of Bangladesh is cheap. It differs from the findings of Narapureddy et al 20 In a study conducted in rural UP, the authors found that 45.7% of the elderly persons sought treatment from private practitioner and private hospital, 32.3% from quack. Only 18.9% sought treatment from Govt.…”

“…hospitals. 20 This discrepancy is may be due to lack of accessibility of Govt. health services in that reason.…”

Health seeking behaviour of elderly in rani block, Kamrup (Rural) district, Assam: a community based cross sectional study

“…Anil Jacob Purty et al 9 in their study in a rural area of Tamil Nadu found that 78.7% of elderly were illiterate. Bayapareddy N et al 10 in a study conducted in a rural area of Allahabad District, UP found that 70.1% of the elderly were illiterate. SH Parry et al 11 in their study conducted in Kashmir found that 67.8% of the elderly in rural area were illiterate.…”

Nutritional status of elderly in rural areas of Haldwani, Nainital district of Uttarakhand

“…Similar finding was confirmed by other observers in their studies. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] In the present study, sex distribution shows that females (57.5%) outnumbered the males (43.5%). The other researchers confirmed the similar finding whereas Shankar R et al, Narapureddy B et al, Kumar R et al and Lahiri S et al found in their studies that number of males were more than that of females.…”

“…The other researchers confirmed the similar finding whereas Shankar R et al, Narapureddy B et al, Kumar R et al and Lahiri S et al found in their studies that number of males were more than that of females. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][16][17][18] The marital status of the elderly shows that 59.77% were married and 40.23% were widowed. This finding was comparable to that of a report published by United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA), where about 60% of the elderly were currently married and 38% widowed.…”