PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS

OLD AGE AND PREVALENCE

Abstract

Psychological anthropology is one of the most current academic discipline; the
intellectual study of the association between the individual and culture debatably instigated
in the late nineteenth century, when W. H. R. Rivers and his contemporaries commenced an
expedition to Melanesia to examine the perceptions of the local people. Objective: objective
of the study is to find relationship between old age and psychological disorders. Study
Design: Cross sectional. Study Locale: The study was conducted in Rawalpindi city. Material
and method: A structured questionnaire was designed to investigate all the variables of the
study. A sample of 500 respondents were drawn from the older population (older persons) of
Rawalpindi city by using convenient sampling technique. Data entry and analysis was done
by using SPSS. Results: There was a significant relationship found between old age and
psychological disorders. According to this study, older people are suffering from psychological
disorders namely; anxiety, sadness, depression, isolation, insomnia, dementia, and feeling
of being useless. Conclusion: Older persons are more vulnerable to the mental illness and
psychological problems. Some problems are prevailed in high proportion among elder persons
such as anxiety, insomnia and feeling of being useless. Good mind is bound with good health,
this clearly depicts that older persons are not suffering from poor psychological health but also
they are facing adverse health conditions. Statistical observations show that some of the older
adults facing more than one psychological problem, their ratio is 6.2% of total sample.