Quality of life among elderly population residing in urban field practice area of a tertiary care institute of Ahmedabad city, Gujarat.

INTRODUCTION: Overall improvement in the living standards of country's population is leading to longer life expectancy. To emphasize the medical and psychological difficulties faced by geriatric people is essential to know status of their quality of life (QOL).

METHODOLOGY: A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out at urban field practice area of one of the teaching institutes of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Considering the prevalence of about 7.5% of 60 years and above people sample size of 250 was calculated. A predesigned questionnaire related to the QOL of elderly people devised by the World Health Organization-QOL was used.

RESULTS: Mean age of the study population was 65.8 years with standard deviation of 5 years. Almost two-thirds of geriatrics were currently married and having spouse alive. List of common morbidities observed among study population was joint pain (42.8%), cataract (32.8%), hypertension (22.4%), diabetes mellitus (17.2%), and dental problems (12.4%). Scoring of QOL profile revealed that none of the geriatric had poor QOL, whereas 56% fall into category "good" and 50.8% had "excellent" QOL. QOL as per four different domains was significantly better among males as compared to females. Physical, environmental, and psychological domains were better in those who were educated and married individuals living with their spouse.

CONCLUSION: Overall QOL was good to excellent. Social characteristics, such as education, marital status, and gender, all play role for the perceived QOL among the respondents.