ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING SCORE AND SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE AMONG ELDERLY IN RURAL AND URBAN AREAS OF LUCKNOW CITY

Background This cross-sectional study interviews 400 elderly belonging to different socioeconomic and varying demographic groups of urban and rural areas of Lucknow as per predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria with their informed consent. Introduction The elderly in India face a multitude of psychological, social, and physical health problems. As age advances there is increased morbidity and functional loss, also presence of a variety of depressive factors and occurrence of varying life events, greatly impact on one’s psychological status. As health care facilities improve in countries, the proportion of the elderly in the population and the life expectancy after birth increase accordingly. This is the trend which has been seen in both developed and developing countries. Aim and Objectives; To determine the socio demographic profile of elderly. To determine the functional status of elderly using ADL scale. Materials And Methods A total of 400 elderly people were interviewed, comprising of 200 people each from the elderly living in the rural areas and 200 elderly living in the urban areas of Lucknow city.. A predesigned and pretested interview schedule was used to elicit information on socio demographic characteristics and required information. Necessary modifications were made in the schedule to overcome the difficulties encountered during pretesting. All the analysis was carried out by using SPSS 16.0 version and the results were recorded as frequencies, means ± standard deviations and p-values. Tables and figures were used for comprehensive viewing of the results. Chi-square test was used for categorical variables. A p-value of <0.05 was taken as the criteria of significance. The study explores activities of daily living score, socio demographic profile important correlates thereof. Results More than one third (38.2%) of the males and 15.3% of females in rural area were in the age group of 60-64 years , in urban areas 28.2 % of males and 15.8% of females belonged to 60-64 yrs age groups. 59.6% males and 82% females in rural area belonged to Hindu community while in urban areas, 37.1% were male and 65.8% were females who belonged to hindu community. In all, 46.5% of the males and 75.4% of females were Hindu. In our study the majority (92.5%) of the elderly males and 92.5% of elderly females had the ability of self bathing .About 83.1% of elderly males and 90.9 % of elderly females had the ability of self dressing. The ability of self dressing was significantly higher( p<0.001) in elderly less than 70 yrs of age than elderly greater than 70 yrs of age .90.6% of males and 98.4% of females had the ability of toileting and the ability for toileting in rural areas are far better than urban areas. The ability of toileting is significantly higher(p<0.001) in elderly <70 yrs of age than elderly > 70 yrs of age. About 89.2% of males and 95.2% of elderly females had the ability for transferring. In all about 83.1% of elderly males and 92% of elderly females had the ability of self control over urination and defecation. Rural elderly had better self control over urination and defecation. Similarly the ability of self control over urination and defecation was significantly higher (p<0.0001) among the age group of 60-64 yrs (96.9%) ,65-69 yrs (93.3%) ,70-74 yrs (75.2%), > 75 yrs (74.4%). In all 97.2% of elderly males and 99.5% of elderly females had the ability of self feeding.