LONELINESS AND DISEASES PREVALENCE

A GERONTOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF ELDER’S DISEASE STATUS

Abstract

Older age is defined as “the phase of life when someone is socially, economically
and culturally dependent on others to pass their life”. Loneliness is an important concerns’ of
researchers especially to study its damaging effects on older persons. Pakistan with 6th largest
population of the world facing ageing issues as other nations of rest of the world. Objectives:
To explore the existence of loneliness and its effects on elder’s health as observed by their
disease status. Design: Cross sectional study. Period: Sep 2013 to Dec 2013. Setting: TMA
Rawal Town, TMA Potohar Town, Rawalpindi City. Methodology: Research was conducted in
urban areas of Rawalpindi city and to collect the data a structured data collection tool was
developed and modified with the help of pre-test observation under similar urban environment.
After data collection tool responses were converted into code plan and then data was entered
in EpiData and analyzed in SPSS. Results: These show the participation of males about 70%
and females 30%. Among 384 respondents, 88.3% reported feelings of loneliness and only
11.7% not agreed with the question statement. Cross comparison of loneliness and disease
occurrence shows that those OPs who feel loneliness predominantly reported the diseases like
Hypertension, Heart problems, Diabetes, Arthritis, Asthma and TB etc. These findings depicts
that loneliness played a key role in the promotion of bad health status among OPs of sample
area. Conclusions: Legislative bodies should consider this issue and do practiced efforts to
increase OPs participation within a family and their immediate social networks, it will help to
reduce bad effects of loneliness and sustain active ageing.