Factors Related With Stress of Elderly People in Khon Kaen Municipality

Abstract

Currently, Thailand is already an aging society. However, about 5-7 % of the elderly have mental health problems such as stress, anxiety, forgetfulness, depression, which leads to suicide. There are many factors that cause of stress which comprised of personal characteristics, environmental and poor stress management, etc. The purpose of this study was to study factors related to stress of the elderly in Khon Kaen Municipality. The research design was an cross sectional analytical study. The subjects were 450 elderlies aged 60-69 years and living in Khon Kaen Municipality. Data were collected by questionnaires during April to May 2019. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as number, percentage, standard deviation, etc. Analysis of the factors associated with stress management and stress levels of the elderly was performed using multiple logistic regression.

Results: Most of the elderly had low level of stress at 68.40 %. Factors influenced to stress of the elderly with statistical significance included occupation (ORadj=2.17; 95% CI=1.38-3.42; p-value=0.001), adequacy of income (ORadj=1.73; 95% CI=1.08-2.77), housing (ORadj=2.18; 95% CI=1.21-3.92) and physical environment (ORadj=3.06; 95% CI=1.92-4.88).

Suggestion: 1) The government ought to pay allowance increasingly for the elderly because they told that government paid money did not enough to support their life. In addition, the elderly should be encouraged to have extra income by participating in the production of their own community products with community participation, such as cooking local food (namely, chili paste, pickled fish) etc. 2). The elderlies live in an unhealthy environment such as smell of sewage and smoke. Therefore, environment should be managed to be hygienic and safety.