Quality of life olderly in province şehi̇tli̇k health center di̇stri̇ct

Introduction and Aim: Old age is an era of loss of physical capability and increase of dependence to environment and revealing more psychologic problems. Quality of life is a term of being happy and pleased with life and in general `condition of being fine?. There is a negative corrolation between age and quality of life. The aim of this study is to determine the quality of life and affecting factors in Diyarbakır province Şehitlik Neighborhood.Materials and Methods: Study is cross sectional type. The scope of this study is the elderly 60 or over years old and their general health condition, the effect of physical and social environment on their quality of life who live in Şehitlik Neighborhood located in Diyarbakır University Department of Public Health Research Region. 358 old people were reached from Şehit Gaffar Okkan health center district records over total 863 living in Şehitlik and Benüsen Neighborhood. There are face to face conversations with 358 old people in the study between 1 Februrary 2009 and 28 April 2009. With face to face interaction tecnique of people of study group, survey of demographic properties and presence of chronic illnesses diagnosed by physicians, a short form of quality of life scale developed by WHO and Turkish version comprised of four fields (WHOQOL-BREF TR and WHOQOL-OLD) were applied. Data analysis were performad with SPSS-16.0 program.Results: The old people under investigation are %47.2 male and %52.8 female. It was detected that the mean age of old was 68.1± 0.2. Of the study group % 66.2 is illiterate and %5.9 has education of higher than elementary level. %13.1 of old are working with paid jobs and %57.8 have regular monthly incomes. Of the old %87.7 have health security, and of all %36 have green card as health security. %65.6 have spouse still alive and % 51.9 are livig without a spouse. Evaluation of chronic illnesses shows that %53.9 have hypertension, %23.5 have diabetes mellitus, and %10 have heart problems. It was also detected that %85.8 need no help for indoor or outdoor activities while %12 who need help, get help from their grooms or brides. The old under study group have quality of life of body field 10.8±4.7, mental field 13.0± 3.8, social field 9.0± 2.9, environment field 12.5± 3.7 and environmental field tr point is 13.0± 3.4. When evaluating the factors affecting the quality of life of old, it was detected that gender, to have a living spouse, having income or not, educational level, the people living with, presence of disability, the condition of living a joyful moment in last one year, presence of a chronic disease and dependence for daily activities are statistically meaningful factors.Conclusion: In developed countries, older people population comprises significant percent of the whole population. In developing countries, like Turkey, population of old is growing very fast. When comparing with studies of other regions of Turkey we determined that the factors affecting the quality of life are almost same with the old people living in Diyarbakır Province, which is one of the provinces of Southeast Turkey, Şehitlik health center district.