HEALTH STATUS OF ELDERLY PEOPLE IN EAST AZARBAIJAN: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Elderly people need more receiving health services. Planning to provide services at regional and national levels requires information about the health status of the elderly. This study was performed to assess the health status of East Azarbaijan province.
In this cross-sectional study, 436 subjects were enrolled (180 men and 258 women) aged ≥ 60 years using multi-level proportioned cluster Random sampling from 19 cities of the province.
Data was collected by a demographic questionnaire , measuring anthropometric characteristics, and blood pressure and using "Mini Nutritional Assessment" ,”Geriatric Depression Scale-15 ", “Katz’s Activity of daily living”, and "Lawton’s Instrumental activities of daily living”.
The mean age of the participants was 69.31 years. The self-reported prevalence of diabetes was 34.2%. The prevalence of hypertension in the elderly was 52.5%. The most common complaint of the participants was pain (60.9%). Totally, 46.9% had a difficulty in walking, 44.3% visually impaired, and 26.4% suffered from hearing impairment. Moreover, 44.8% of sleep disorders was found. Also 26% of the participants had depressed mood.
Elderly residents of East Azerbaijan province, has probably a better health status than the average Iranian elderly. However, there is a high prevalence of hypertension and diabetes among older adults of this province that need to more pay attention.