LONELINESS AND DISEASES PREVALENCE

Older age is defined as “the phase of life when someone is socially, economicallyand culturally dependent on others to pass their life”. Loneliness is an important concerns’ ofresearchers especially to study its damaging effects on older persons. Pakistan with 6th largestpopulation of the world facing ageing issues as other nations of rest of the world. Objectives:To explore the existence of loneliness and its effects on elder’s health as observed by theirdisease status. Design: Cross sectional study. Period: Sep 2013 to Dec 2013. Setting: TMARawal Town, TMA Potohar Town, Rawalpindi City. Methodology: Research was conducted inurban areas of Rawalpindi city and to collect the data a structured data collection tool wasdeveloped and modified with the help of pre-test observation under similar urban environment.After data collection tool responses were converted into code plan and then data was enteredin EpiData and analyzed in SPSS. Results: These show the participation of males about 70%and females 30%. Among 384 respondents, 88.3% reported feelings of loneliness and only11.7% not agreed with the question statement. Cross comparison of loneliness and diseaseoccurrence shows that those OPs who feel loneliness predominantly reported the diseases likeHypertension, Heart problems, Diabetes, Arthritis, Asthma and TB etc. These findings depictsthat loneliness played a key role in the promotion of bad health status among OPs of samplearea. Conclusions: Legislative bodies should consider this issue and do practiced efforts toincrease OPs participation within a family and their immediate social networks, it will help toreduce bad effects of loneliness and sustain active ageing.