A cross-sectional survey on the health status and the health-related quality of life of the elderly after flood disaster in Bazhong city, Sichuan, China

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Tian Tian¹  Xun Zhuang¹  Tong Li¹  Qi Wang¹  Yihua Lu¹  Xiaoyan Li¹  Huamin Sun¹  Jian Xiao²  Jun Wu³  Xiaoshan Li⁴  Lei Zhang⁵  Eric PF Chow⁶ 

[1] Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Nantong University, 9 Seyuan Road, 226019, Nantong City, Jiangsu, China;Nantong Shipping College, Jiangsu, China;Nantong Tumor Hospital Affiliated of Nantong University, Jiangsu, China;School of Public Health, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China;School of Public Health, Southeast University, No. 82 Chengxian Street, Xuanwu District, Nanjing City 210018, Jiangsu, China;The Kirby Institute, the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia;The Kirby Institute, the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia;Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, Alfred Health, Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia;Central Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia;

关键词: Flood disaster;    Elderly;    Health status;    Health-related quality of life (HRQoL);   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-015-1402-5

 received in 2014-07-12, accepted in 2015-01-12,  发布年份 2015

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundFlood is common in China and causes extensive loss of property and human lives. Elderly is a vulnerable population prone to the detrimental impacts of floods. This survey aims to investigate the health status and the HRQoL of the elderly in Bazhong city after a major flood in 2011.MethodsA total of 1183 elderly (aged > 60) were surveyed through random sampling from eight villages in Bazhong city. Two-week healthcare-seeking rate and chronic diseases prevalence were recorded anonymously. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was measured by the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 (MOS SF-36). Multivariate regression analysis was conducted to determine the associated factors of poor HRQoL.ResultsThe two-week healthcare-seeking rate among post-flood Bazhong elderly was significantly higher than the references rate among rural elderly in Sichuan province (59.3% versus 55.7%, χ2 = 5.134, p = 0.013), but Bazhong elderly demonstrated a significantly lower prevalence of chronic disease (33.2% versus 44.4%, χ2 = 48.847, p < 0.001). All dimension scores among Bazhong elderly were significantly lower than the references scores in rural Sichuan elderly. The determinants of poor physical health included older age, singlehood, poor sleep patterns, and chronic diseases and so on.ConclusionsA marked decline in health status among elderly in Bazhong after the 2011 flood. Post-flood management targeting elderly need to be sensitive to their age, gender, married status and status of chronic diseases.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Wu et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.