Psychological Health Problem of Elderly: A Sociological Study

Description

Page: 558-561

Praveen Kumar¹, Vinod Kumari², Meenu Singh³, and Preeti Duhan⁴(Department of Sociology, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana¹,²,³, and Department of Psychology, GJUS&T, Hisar, Haryana⁴)

Ageing may be viewed as a biological, psychological and social development process of individuals including transition in social position, roles, status and attitude (Basu, 2012). It is defined as a natural and universal phenomenon that begins from the birth of an individual and continues till death. After the birth, an individual gradually crosses the various stages of life and finally dies due to ageing (Chaturbhuja, 1998). The biological, psychological and sociological (bio-psychosocial) factors associated with old age and ageing are examined through a scientific study known as Gerontology. The process of social ageing can be located at the core of sociological theory because they are connected fundamentally to the conditions of social solidarity (Turner, 1989). In a comprehensive investigation, research was undertaken within two distinct cultural regions in the state of Haryana, each carefully chosen through a process of random selection. Likewise, one district was randomly designated from within each of these cultural zones. From each district, one block has been selected at random .From one block three villages have been selected randomly. It was observed that on average 66.4 percent of elders had average psychological health status whereas 30.8 percent had good and 2.8 percent as poor psychological health status. More number of males had good psychological health status (47.8%) as compared to females (13.9%). No male respondent had poor psychological health status whereas 5.6 percent of female respondents had poor psychological health status.