The relationship between mental health of elderly people with their disabilities on global scale world health organization disability assessment schedule II and general health questionnaire

Abstract

Introduction: Disability is an indicator for the measurement of health status in the elderly, and various researches have shown that the disability has an inverse effect on the quality of the elderly patients' life. Due to the increasing population of the elderly in our country, this study was conducted to evaluate the relationship between disabled elderly patients with mental problems, in order to reduce its psychological effects on them. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 300 elderly people in twenty regions of Sabzevar. Data collection tools were World Health Organization Disability Assessment Schedule II, LOTR and Child Health Questionnaires. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and regression by SPSS software. Results: The average age of the sample was 68 years. In this study, 3.1% had a mild disability and 7.98% of them have disability above average. The results reveal that the disability has significant effects on elderly patients, meaning that the higher the grade of disability, the higher the anxiety and the lower the happiness and optimism. Conclusion: Considering the higher incidence of disability in Sabzevar (east of Iran) among elderly people compared to other studies and its effects on anxiety, happiness and optimism, some mental health problems may arouse due to co-occurrence with disabilities.

Keywords

• disability
• elderly
• mental and physical health