Abstract

Background: World population ageing is enduring, the proportion of older persons has been rising steadily, from 7 per cent in 1950 to 11 per cent in 2007, with an expected rise to reach 22 percent in 2050. Globally the population of older persons is growing at a rate of 2.6 per cent per year, considerably faster than the population as a whole which is increasing at 1.1 percent annually. The issue of health care-seeking (or medical-care) behaviour is crucial to all society.
Objective: To know the Socio-demographic distribution of elderly population in rural area, observe the Health seeking behaviour of the rural elderly and to know the available health care services in rural area of Uttar Pradesh.
Materials and Methods: A community based Cross sectional study was conducted from October 2010 to June 2011. Persons aged 60 years and above were selected by multistage random sampling. The minimum Sample size of 400 was calculated using formula 4pq/d2 and finally a total of 411 individuals were studied. The data was analyzed by means, proportions and Chi-square test, p value less than 0.05(p<0.05) at 95% confidence interval, was consider for significant, SPSS Version 12 Statistical Software was used to analyze the data.
Results: Out of the 411 elderly persons, 214 (52.1%) were males and 197(47.9%) were females. Mean age for the entire study population was 69.2 years with a standard deviation of 7.8 years. Majority of the elderly population were illiterate (70.1%). Higher proportion of females was illiterate (92.4%) as compared to males (49.5%). Among the 411 elderly persons, 188 (45.7%) sought treatment from private practitioner and private hospital, 133 (32.3%) from non registered practitioner (Quack), only 77 (18.9%) sought treatment from Government hospital and remaining 13 (3.1%) used home remedies or sought help from traditional healers. Conclusion: Majority of the geriatric subjects were in the age group of 60 to 69 years. Awareness must be generated among the elderly regarding the problems related to the ageing, strict implementation of legislation on parents’ care by their children and Promotion of income.