Diseases pattern of elderly patients attending in rural teaching hospital in Nepal

Author: 
Tarun Paudel and Seshananda Sanjel

Introduction: The elderly population of the world increasing gradually. The situation of elderly population of Nepal also is in increasing trend as in other countries. Our government is also started to give priorities for the elderly population at present. This paper attempts to assess the utilization of health care services among the elderly population who were attending in the Emergency department of Karnali Academy of Health sciences Jumla. Methods: This is study of elderly patients who were attending for the services in the Karnali Academy of Health Sciences, Teaching Hospital during a period of four months (Ashoj to Posh) in 2074BS. We took >60 years patient’s data from the emergency record books and analyzed by using SPSS-20 version. The descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were done. P value is set at <0.05 for the significance level. Results: All together 117 elderly patients’ data were analyzed, among them 64.1% and 17.9% were Chhetri and lower caste respectively. Majority of the patients were 60-69 years of age group, 52.1% and 47.9% were male and female respectively. About 69% of the elderly patients managed in Emergency department. Only 30.8% patients admitted in respective wards for their special care. The commonest problems were COPD (44.4%) and APD (13.7%). Chi-square test was done and has no statistically significant association between outcome and sex as well as caste of the elderly patients. Conclusions: More than two-third of the elderly patients managed in emergency department, therefore make this department elder friendly, trained the working staffs in the hospital and conduct awareness program in the community for the elderly care, who can utilized the services provided by the hospital.

Paper No: 
3295