PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH OF ELDERLY IN URBAN WEST BENGAL, INDIA AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH QUALITY OF LIFE

Debalina Datta, Pratyay Pratim Datta*, Kunal Kanti Majumdar

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Due to rapid social transformation the geriatric population contributes to significant proportion of total population in both developed and developing countries. This resulting situation has called for attention of sociologists, anthropologists, demographers, economists, researchers, policy makers and program planners and implementers. Quality of life of this section of people is of utmost importance and the present study was planned to asses the psychological health status of geriatric people and its relationship with their quality of life. Materials and Methods: It was a community based cross sectional study conducted at Sonarpur and Kolkata areas of West Bengal, India. The data collection was done from 472 geriatric people living in these areas using Quality of Life-BREF questionnaire developed by World Health Organization and General Health Questionnaire-28 developed by David Goldberg. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 16.0. Results: Quality of life score decreased significantly in all domains with increase in the somatic symptoms, anxiety/ insomnia, social dysfunction, severe depression and total GHQ score. The increase in GHQ score of a person indicates more chance of psychological morbidity, while increase in QOL indicates better quality of life. So, a person having more chance of psychological morbidity will have poor quality of life in all domains. Discussion: Quality of life has a significant association with the psychological health. Overall improvement of geriatric people is only possible if their psychological health as well as quality of life improve. Awareness and active involvement of family members, community people and the Government about the betterment of the elderly and elderly friendly policy can do a lot. If elderly people’s huge experience is utilized properly, then the community will be benefited and the geriatric people will also find meaning of their lives; ultimately their psychological health and quality of life will improve.

Keywords: Life-BREF, psychological health sociologists, anthropologists, demographers, economists.