Comparison of volunteers working in civil society organizations over 65 years old in terms of cognitive functions

Objective: This research was carried out to compare the cognitive function levels of individuals aged 65 and over, living in Aydın and working in non-governmental organizations as official-voluntarily and without a neurological diagnosis, with their peers who do not work formally-voluntarily in any non-governmental organization. Materials and Methods: This research is a cross-sectional and comparative study. The research was carried out in Aydın central Efeler District. Data collection started in March-2021, and in January-2022, the elderly who agreed to participate in the study in non-govermental organizations were reached. The data of 107 participants, 37 of whom were official volunteers and 70 of whom were not working as volunteer, were analyzed in the study. Data were collected with a questionnaire prepared by the researchers. Descriptive statistics, chi-square and student-t tests were used in the analysis of the data. Results: The year of education average of the official-volunteer group (Group-1) participating in the study was 12.54 years and the non-volunter group (Group-2) was 8.34 years (p<0.001). When the Group-1 and Group-2 were examined in terms of waist-circumference measurement data, it was seen that there was a statistically significant difference between them (p<0.001). When analyzed in terms of TUG scores and GDS scores, there was a statistically significant difference between them (p<0.001 and p<0.001). Conclusion: In this study, we did not find a statistically significant difference in cognitive function between people over the age of 65 who work voluntarily and their peers who do not work voluntarily. We revealed that people over the age of 65 who work in an NGO voluntarily have lower depression scores and better physical values than their peers who do not work voluntarily. In addition, those who worked on a formal-voluntary basis had a higher education level than their non-working peers.