Assessing the dependence of elderly people in their activitiesof daily living using Barthel index in an urban area ,Mysuru

Introduction

In India elderly population is accounted to be rising, according to 2011 census nearly 104 million elderly people aged 60 years and above were present. United Nations Population Fund and Help age India reported that there will be rise in number of elderly people to 173 million by 2026. The size and share of the elderly population was increasing from day to day. In 1961 it was about 5.6% which has risen to 8.6% in 2011. According to the census, about 71% of elderly people reside in rural area and 29% in urban area. The old age dependency ratio has been increased from 10.9% in 1961 to 14.2% in 2011. 14.9% for females and 13.6% for males was the dependence ratio according to 2011 report. The literacy rates among the elderly females was less when compare to elderly males. The prevalence of non communicable disease was more in urban area than in rural area.

 In view of this our study aims to assess the dependence of elderly people in their Activities of Daily Living and to find out its association with socio demograp

Materials and methods

A Cross sectional study was conducted in the Government urban primary health centre, Bannimantap, Mysuru for the period of two month from September to October 2019.

The sample size was calculated by considering the prevalence of 23.4% of elderly people having physical disability.

Assuming at least 20% error with the prevalence rate of 23.4%, a sample size of 327 elderly people needs to be studied. A total of 327 elderly people were selected by Simple random sampling from the Government UPHC, Bannimantap, Mysuru district.

Inclusion criteria -Elderly people who come under the age group of 60 years and above were included.

Exclusion criteria¬¬-Elderly people who were not willing to participate in the study were excluded from the study.

Study tool - a semi structured questionnaire used along with Barthel index.

Statistical analysis-The data was entered in the MS EXCEL sheet followed by the analysis using SPSS version 21.

The Socio-demographic data like age, gender, education and occupation history etc. And its association with activities of daily living was done by using chi-square test with the statistical significance of ‘p’value <0.05.

The results were represented by using the arithmetic mean, standard deviation and percentages with bar diagram, pie chart at the statistical significance of ‘p’value <0.05.

Ethical approval- The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee

Results

Socio demographic characteristics of the study participants, about 50.2% belong to 60 to 69 years age group, 45% were 70 to 79 years and 4.9% belongs to 80 to 89 years. Among all the study participants 68.5% were female and 31.5% were male. 44.6% have completed their high schools and 47.7% were currently working for their daily living. Most of them were belong to joint family i.e. 63.9% and 51.4% belongs to low socio economic group (Table 1).

In the Activities of Daily Living among the study participants, 115 elderly needs help in feeding i.e. cutting, spreading butter etc. About 15 study participants were dependent while bathing, 115 study participants were dependent on others for the daily activities like grooming, dressing, toilet use and while climbing the stairs. About 163 elderly were dependent during Transfers, mobility from one place to other and bowel control (Table 2).

The scoring of the Barthel index among all the study participants, about 30.3% belongs to severe dependence, 26.3% belongs to moderate dependence and about 43.4% belongs to slight dependence on others during their Activities of Daily Living (Table 3).

The association of Activities of Daily Living with the socio demographic characteristics will be seen with the age factor, education, currently working and the socio economic status with the statistical significance of ‘p’ value <0.05 (Table 4).

Discussion

According to our study, we tried to assess the dependence of elderly people in their Activities of Daily Living which they perform in their day to day life. About 50% were comes under the age group of 60 to 69 years, as the age increases the elderly population aged above 70 and 80 years will be less when compared to 60 to 69 years age group. This will be similar to other studies as the age rises there is less number of study participants in that age group.2,3

In distribution of gender, female participants were more when compare male. In our study about 68.5% were female and 31.5% were male i.e. most of them were female study participants this will be somewhat similar to other studies.1,2

The prevalence rate of dependence among elderly were 30.3% with severe dependence on others for their daily activities, this will be more when compare to other studies i.e. 23.4%.1 The elderly have also opine that as the age increases which leads to raise in the other risk factors through Non communicable diseases like Diabetes, Hypertension, Cardiac problem etc.1

According to many studies, most of them were consider Katz index and also Lawston index in order to study the disability among the elderly people around the world. The functional disability plays the important role in independence of the activities of daily living. Hence it is important to promote the health of the elderly people both in urban and rural area.5,6

The dependence of elderly people was associated with the important socio demographic characteristics like age factor, education, current working status and socio economic status. This will be similar to most of the studies.1,2 Hence it is important to make policy and programmes in view of improving the health of the elderly people in both urban and rural area.

Conclusion

According to our study there is a raise in the prevalence of dependency of elderly people. Hence it is important to promote the health of the elderly people through proper family support, medical treatment, counselling and friendly environment with the activities like yoga, meditation, healthy diet etc. There were many national programmes and policies were framed in view of this. It is important to work out to make these policies and programmes to reach out the needed elderly people. We can also plan for further studies to upgrade the facilities of health care system, through this we can plan and implement the more effective means of policies and programmes to promote the health of the elderly people in our country.

Declarations

Funding: No funding sources

Conflict of interest: None declared

Ethical approval: The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee