Background: Longevity has increased significantly in the last few decades mainly due to the socio-economic and health care developments. These factors are responsible for the higher numerical presence of elderly people leading to change in age structure, and a higher dependency ratio. In this juncture we need to reappraise the quality of life of elderly people.
Aims & Objective: The main objective of this paper is to study the quality of life of elderly people of Varanasi city, India.
Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted of elderly people living in the four colonies (Mahamana Puri, Sundarpur, Nagwan, Samne Ghat) of Varanasi city. The results are expressed in terms of Mean and SE of mean. Chi-Square test, t-test and one-way ANOVA test have been used to compare the mean scores of quality of life score based on different variables under the domain of Physical Health, Interpersonal life, Economic status, Physical Environment.
Results: A total of 166 old age people were included in this study. Out of 166 elderly people 121(72.89%) were Males and remaining were females. The mean age of the study population was found to be 63.95 ± 6.08 years. Majority of them were literate (95.18%). Eye sight weakness is the most prominent problem among the elderly. An overwhelming majority (61.45%) of elderly had an average quality of life, where as 24.10% and 14.45% elderly had a poor and good quality of life respectively.
Conclusion: Majority of elderly had an average quality of life quality of life. There is an urgent need of social protection in form of assuring old age pension and compulsory health insurance.
Key words: Elderly people, Ageing, Quality of life.
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