وضعیت سلامت سالمندان استان خوزستان (مطالعه‌ی سیمای سلامت سالمندان کشور)

Background: Older people are vulnerable in terms of health status. The elderly`s Khuzestan due to the very warm weather of this region are more at risk for health problems. This study is a report on the health status of the elderly in Khuzestan province in 2012. Methods: This is a Cross-sectional study, with multi-level proportional cluster Random sampling among people aged ≤ 60 years of Khuzestan province. Nutritional status was assessed by Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), depressed mood screening was conducted with Geriatric Depression Scale-15 questionnaire, activities of daily living was evaluated using KATZ ADL and Lawton Instrumental ADL tools. Results: In this study, 387 people participated. The prevalence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, depressed mood, and anxiety in the participants, were 38.8%, 28.6%, 34.9 and 38.7, respectively. Hearing loss reported in 33.9% and vision impairment was in 62.2% of the participants. Memory impaired founded in 14.9% of the participants.  4.3% of the elderly suffered from malnutrition and 48.3% were at risk of malnutrition. Dysfunction in ADL were existed in 13.9% and 30.3% of the participants had some degrees of dysfunction in IADL. Poly pharmacy (consumed more than 3 medications) was observed in 36.5% of older adults in this province. The most common health services need was medical services at home and then transport services. Conclusion: Although the health status of the elderly in Khuzestan province  generally was not worse than the average of Iran, it needs that a special pay attention in some areas, such as hypertension, diabetes, nutritional status and lack of independence in activities of daily living in this age group.