Health status of elderly people in khuzestan: A cross-sectional study

Older people are vulnerable in terms of health status. The elderly`s Khuzestan due to the very warm weather of this region are more at risk for health problems. This study is a report on the health status of the elderly in Khuzestan province in 2012.
This is a Cross-sectional study, with multi-level proportional cluster Random sampling among people aged ≤ 60 years of Khuzestan province. Nutritional status was assessed by Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), depressed mood screening was conducted with Geriatric Depression Scale-15 questionnaire, activities of daily living was evaluated using KATZ ADL and Lawton Instrumental ADL tools.
In this study, 387 people participated. The prevalence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, depressed mood, and anxiety in the participants, were 38.8%, 28.6%, 34.9 and 38.7, respectively. Hearing loss reported in 33.9% and vision impairment was in 62.2% of the participants. Memory impaired founded in 14.9% of the participants. 4.3% of the elderly suffered from malnutrition and 48.3% were at risk of malnutrition. Dysfunction in ADL were existed in 13.9% and 30.3% of the participants had some degrees of dysfunction in IADL.
Poly pharmacy (consumed more than 3 medications) was observed in 36.5% of older adults in this province. The most common health services need was medical services at home and then transport services.
Although the health status of the elderly in Khuzestan province generally was not worse than the average of Iran, it needs that a special pay attention in some areas, such as hypertension, diabetes, nutritional status and lack of independence in activities of daily living in this age group.