Is mental health a burning health issue for Indian elderly?
Is mental health a burning health issue for Indian elderly?

Summary/Abstract: One of the important public health issues worldwide is the rise of higher proportion of older aged with advancement of medicine, prolonged life expectancy and for improved health care facilities. Demographic projections suggest that mental illness along with heart diseases, AIDS and cancer will account for the top four illnesses around the globe very soon. It ranks up at the top along with heart disease, cancer, obesity, AIDS and injuries as leading causes of suffering. Increased longevity of elderly led to higher prevalence of age related neurological disorder like depression, anxiety and so on. In view of this, main objective of the paper is to evaluate the level of depression and anxiety among the rural and urban Indian elderly aged 65years to 79years and their possible sociodemographic correlates. Severity in depression and anxiety level is found to be significantly higher among rural males and females in comparison to their urban counterparts. The result of logistic regression analysis indicates that several socio-demographic covariates are the significant predictor of depression and anxiety occurrence. It can be inferred from the present study that rural population is in more vulnerable condition than urban elderly in depression and anxiety prevalence.

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