Physical and Mental Health Level of the Elderly Living in Central Greece

INTRODUCTION: Elderly population is growing fast in the western world due to a reduction in birth rates and a marked increase in life expectancy with multiple co-morbidity that warrants greater attention by health care workers. AIM: The purpose of the study is to investigate the levels of physical and mental health of elderly people living in Central Greece. METHODS: A cross-sectional study design was adopted with self completed questionnaires. Data collected, included socio-demographic and general health information using the Greek version of General Health Questionnaire 28. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and regularity diagrams were employed. RESULTS: The sample included 230 elderly people with an average age of 73.1 years, women (53.5%), married (75.7%), with children (100%), primary school graduates (47.8%), residing in a city (72.2%), retired (90.9%), living with a spouse (68.3%), worked previously (96%) and 37.4% with a present monthly income of 301-600€. In the General Health Questionnaire, the internal consistency factor Cronbach’s alpha for ‘physical depressive symptoms’ was 0.85, for ‘anxiety and insomnia’ 0.86, for ‘social dysfunction’ 0.86 and for ‘depressive sentiment’ 0.89, which indicates an excellent reliability of the questionnaire. The ‘social malfunction’ sub-scale showed the highest score (8.9) then ‘anxiety and insomnia’ (6.9) followed by ‘physical symptoms of depression’ (6.2) and ‘depressive sentiment’ (3.4). For the ‘anxiety and insomnia’ sub-scale, marital status shows another important correlation: unmarried elderly people had higher levels of stress. A lower educational level was associated with higher levels of anxiety and insomnia. Marital status appears to affect the manifestation of depressive symptoms as widows, singles and divorced showed a higher mean rate of depression than married people. CONCLUSIONS: Various demographic as well as bio-psycho-social factors affecting health and particularly mental health are distributed unevenly between older men and women and between older people living in urban and rural areas. Therefore as our findings show, special care and priority should be granted to those who are single or widowed or divorced as they seem to be at greatest risk for overall declining mental health.