A survey of health status and health perception of the elderly in rural Saraburi

Abstract

Introduction: The elderly are at high risk of chronic non-communicable diseases. Objective: To study health status including prevalence of physical symptoms, chronic non-communicable diseases, and health perception of the elderly in a rural area of Saraburi province, Thailand. Awareness and understanding of the problems could lead to proper solution planning. Materials and methods: Secondary data from a cross-sectional survey with simple random sampling to evaluate health status were used. A survey was conducted by interviewing participants with the age of 55 and above by 183 4^th-year medical students of Chulalongkorn University.  The questionnaire consisted of questions on health status and health perception of the elderly. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Fisher’s exact test and Wilcoxon rank sum test. Results: Of 240 participants, 39% were overweight or obese (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m²). Ninety-three percent had at least one physical symptom with the highest prevalence of joint pain (83%). Eighty-five percent had at least one underlying disease, with the top three diseases of hypertension (63.8%), knee osteoarthritis (38.3%), and diabetes (23.3%). The survey of health perception revealed that 42% thought their general health was at a moderate level. Additionally, the results also showed association between health perception and prevalence of physical symptoms and chronic diseases. Conclusion: There were many elderlies with obesity problems and untreated physical symptoms. The results revealed that health status of the participants could be further enhanced and this can help improve their mental health and the quality of life.