Morbidity Profile among the Elderly in an Urban Slum Population of Burla, Sambalpur

BackgroundThere has been rapid growth in the number of older population& making it a challenge in front of health sector for service delivery as most of them live in rural areas. Burden of morbidity is enormous among them. ObjectiveTo know the morbidity pattern among the elderly. Material& methodsIt was a community based cross-sectional study conducted in an urban slum. ResultOut of 96 study subjects 75 (78.12 %) were in the age group of 6069 years, 19 (19.79 %) were in the age group 7079 years and only 2 (2.08 %) were in the age group more than 80 years. Among the elderly 34 (35.4 %) were males& 62 (64.6 %) were females. Majority 69 (71.9 %) were illiterate.70 (73 %) were having addiction. In the morbidity pattern, visual loss was the most common condition among 31 (32.29 %) subjects, followed by HTN 25 (26.04 %), Hearing loss 9 (9.37 %), Diabetes mellitus 8 (8.33 %) and osteoarthritis 5 (5.20 %). ConclusionThe overall morbidity was high among the study population which was mostly of the non-communicable diseases and degenerative disease.