A Comparative Study on Health Profile and Health Seeking Behaviour of the Elderly in Urban and Rural Areas of Bangalore, Karnataka Akila GV1, Arvind BA2,*, isaac Arjunan3 1Assistant Professor, Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai 2Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, NIMHANS, Bangalore 3Associate Professor, MS Ramaiah Medical College, Bangalore *Corresponding author: Arvind BA, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, NIMHANS, Bangalore, E-mail- aravind_baa@yahoo.co.in, +91-9886652220
Online published on 13 November, 2019. Abstract Background Significant variation is observed in medical disorders and age-related physiological decline among the elderly.1 Insights can be gathered from the variation of health profile depending on the geographic location. Method This comparative cross sectional study was conducted among the 510 elderly, aged 60 years and above, in the Urban and Rural field practice area of a medical college. Information were obtained using predesigned pretested semi structured questionnaire Results Three fourth of the study population complained of suffering from atleast one morbidity. Diabetes (28%) and hypertension (27%) were the common morbidities identified in urban area whereas it was joint pain (39%) and visual impairment (23%) in the rural area. In urban area, 86.3% used private health facilities whereas in rural area, 89% used public health facilities. Conclusion Study showed a significant difference in the health profile and health seeking behaviour of the elderly in urban and rural areas. Hence health intervention and health programmes have to be planned taking into account these differences. Top Keywords Health profile, health seeking behaviour, elderly, urban, rural. Top |