The relationship between the level of adaptation to old individuals and pain

This study aims to; investigate the relationship between the level of adaptation to old age and pain in individuals aged 65 years and older. Between January and March 2022, 420 individuals aged 65 and over participated in this descriptive study, which was conducted in Mersin with the virtual snowball sampling method. The data of the study were collected with the Individual Introduction Form, Assessment Scale of Adaptation Difficulty for the Elderly and Geriatric Pain Scale. The online survey link of the data collection form prepared in the "Google Forms" application was delivered to the elderly or their relatives via e-mail or electronic communication (WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram) and the research data was collected. In the evaluation of the research data, the Shapiro-Wilk test was used for mean, standard deviation, percentage, normality analysis, the Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare two groups, the Benferoni-corrected Kruskal-Wallis H test was used to compare more than two groups, and the Spearman correlation analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between two variables. In this study; It was determined that the mean score of the Geriatric Pain Scale of the elderly was 36.13±25.85 and they experienced moderate pain. It was determined that the mean score of the Assessment Scale of Adaptation Difficulty for the Elderly was 0.50±0.43 and the level of adaptation to old age was good. It was determined that 87.6% of the elderly experienced pain in the last year and 81.7% in the last month, those aged 75 and over experienced more severe pain than those aged 65-74, women from men, singles from married, those without chronic diseases, semi-dependents and dependents from independents, those who experienced pain in the last one year and one month than those who did not experience pain, and the level of adaptation to old age was lower. According to the results of this study, it was determined that individuals with high levels of pain experienced difficulties in adapting to old age. For this reason, it is recommended to be more careful when assessing the pain of women, single, chronically ill and low-income, dependent and dependent elderly people, to increase the independence of ADL and giving importance to pain management.