AGEING IN THE RURAL AREA: QUALITY OF LIFE AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS IN SIVAS/TURKEY

Abstract

Introduction: This study aimed to identify the Quality of Life (QOL) and associated factors among rural elders. They represent a growing percentage in the national population today and have become increasingly isolated in villages that are being drained due to migration flows from rural to urban areas. Materials and Method: The universe of the present cross-sectional study consists of people of and over the age of 65 living in villages of the Zara district in Sivas Province. The study sample is composed of 20 villages and 577 elderly individuals living in these villages. The data were collected with the use of a personal information form, the WHOQOL-Bref QOL scale, the Geriatric Depression scale, and the Barthel Index of Activities of Daily Living through face-to-face interviews. The data thus obtained were evaluated on the SPSS software through the implementation of the distribution measures, Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskall-Wallis Variance test. Results: Twenty-five per cent of the elderly individuals included in the study perceive their health status as being poor. The difference between gender, age, education, economic status, health perception, dependency information, and score averages in all subfield scores of QOL among the elderly was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). Conclusion: Advanced age, female gender, chronic disease, depression, perception of health as poor, dependency, and constantly living in a village were determined to be among the negative factors that affect the elderly's QOL.