Geriatric Disability and Associated Risk Factors: A Community Based Study in a Rural Area of West Bengal, India

Abstract

Background: Similar to developed countries, aging is increasedin India. Because of the epidemiology and demographictransition phase, chronic diseases and disabilitiesalong with health costs are increasing day by day. As socialfactors and chronic diseases are the major reasons for geriatricdisability, the present study was done with the following objectives:to assess and compare the socio-demographic characteristicsamong the disabled and non-disabled geriatric population,and to find out the association between sociodemographicand chronic diseases with functional disabilityamong the study population.Methods: A cross-sectional study was done in a rural communityof West Bengal, India. House to house visit, clinicalexamination, observation, and interview were done with a predesigned,pre-tested proforma. Epi Info and SPSS softwarewere used for statistical analysis.Results: A total of 458 people had chronic conditions and theprevalence of disability was 17.47%. Among the sociodemographicvariables, age, female sex, marital status, literacystatus, and family composition and among the chronic diseases,tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, ischemicheart disease, osteoarthritis, neuropathy, acid peptic disorder,prostatic hypertrophy, and osteoporosis were found as risk factorsof disability in binary logistic regression analysis. 71.2% ofthe disabilities were explained by these risk factors.Conclusion: The data highlighted the different risk factorsassociated with disability. No single measure rather multidimensionalapproach should be the model for the preventionof disability