Health status and dependency of Thai elderly in an urban area: Hat Yai Municipality
Keywords:
Elderly, health status, dependency, municipality, urbanAbstract
This survey research aimed to explore the health status and dependency of the elderly in Hat Yai municipal area. Multi-stage random sampling was used to recruit 400 elderly who were community dwellers in Hat Yai City. The data were collected using five sets of questionnaire: 1) personal profile, 2) physical health status, 3) functional ability (Barthel ADL index and Chula ADL index), 4) depression screening questions (2Q/9Q) and Abbreviated Mental Test (AMT), and 5) social and environmental health survey. All questionnaires were evaluated for their content validity by a panel of 3 experts and their reliability was examined using interrater evaluation (average percentage of agreement = 99.0%). The data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. The results revealed that over half of the elderly (59.1%) perceived that they had moderate health status (no/well controlled chronic illness). Most were obese (BMI > 22.9 = 67%) and had above-normal waist circumference (65.8%), had underlying diseases (75.3%) and experienced at least one symptom in the past month (72.0%), had no fall (90.6%) or accident (98.7%) in the past year, performed regular exercise (70.8%), and had no risky behaviors (95.8%), no depression (95%) and no other mental health problem (89.7%).
Considering their activities of daily living (ADL) index, 96.8% were socially-bound (ADL > 12). 2.2% were bed-bound (ADL 0-4), and only 1.0% were home-bound (ADL 5-11), whereas 30.8% were dependent on others to do outdoor activities. More than half (53%) had a balanced budget. Most had children as caregivers (83.0%), received continuous care from their family members (92.0%), and had appropriate living arrangement (81.5%), but 18.5% had no suitable toilet. Almost half (49.5%) participated in community activities.
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