Ability to Perform Daily Activities of the Elderly in Bangkok Metropolis
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Abstract
The descriptive research aimed to: 1) assess the ability to daily living of the elderly 2) compare the level of ability to perform daily activities of the elderly by gender, age, marital status, educational level and income 3) analyze the factors affecting the ability in daily living of the elderly. The samples of the study were selected by purposive sampling from elderly communities including 1) slum 2) urban 3) suburban and 4) high rise building communities, totaling 888 samples. Data were collected by interview using the Barthel ADL Index, which was developed by the Institute of Geriatric Medicine, the Department of Medicine and the Ministry of Public Health. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with the Post-Hoc analysis of the Duncan method.
The research results were found that more that 90% of the elderly are able to perform good daily life independently in both basic and complex activities; only 8 in 10 of the elderly are able to control their bladder and bowel movements. The highest attention of issues related to control of bladder and bowel movements was identified in urban communities. In addition, the highest difficulty occurred in suburban communities,
specifically regarding daily grocery shopping and public transportation. The gender, marital status, and educational level did not greatly impact daily living activities of the elderly. Income and age did significantly affect the daily living ability of the elderly population. The research indicated that elderly with higher income levels possessed greater ability to accomplish their daily living activities (p < .05). Elderly in younger age brackets were found to possess a greater ability to accomplish daily living activities as opposed to those aged 80 and older (p < .05). The recommendations from this study are as follows: the government sector should increase the welfare and subsistence allowance for the elderly. In addition, there should be joint planning between the health team and the elderly caregivers to organize activities so that the elderly can continue their activities daily.
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