Reasons for Living of Elderly in Old Age Homes:  An Exploratory Study

Shamsi Akbar; S.C.Tiwari; Rakesh Kumar Tripathi; Ambrish Kumar; Nisha Mani Pandey

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Comparative Study

| Published: December 25, 2014

Reasons for Living of Elderly in Old Age Homes: An Exploratory Study

Shamsi Akbar

Research Scholar, Corresponding author, King George’s Medical University, UP, Lucknow, India Google Scholar More about the auther

, S.C.Tiwari

Professor & Head, King George’s Medical University, UP, Lucknow, India Google Scholar More about the auther

, Rakesh Kumar Tripathi

Assistant Professor, King George’s Medical University, UP, Lucknow, India Google Scholar More about the auther

, Ambrish Kumar

Social Worker, King George’s Medical University, UP, Lucknow, India Google Scholar More about the auther

, Nisha Mani Pandey

Senior Research Officer, King George’s Medical University, UP, Lucknow, India Google Scholar More about the auther

DIP: 18.01.029/20140201

DOI: 10.25215/0201.029

ABSTRACT

Background: Now-a-days, almost all the old age homes (OAHs) in India are fully occupied with residents. Why Indian elderly have to reside in old age homes? It was explored during the Ph.D. study titled ‘A Study of Psychiatric Morbidity, Quality of Life and Expectations of Inmates of Old Age Homes in Northern India’. The object of this study was to explore the factors compelling elderly to reside in old age homes.

Methods: This study was carried out on 174 elderly residing in 14 different OAHs of Uttar Pradesh, India. Factors responsible for their settlement in OAHs were explored using interview method.

Results: Misbehaviour of son and daughters-in-law (29.8%) was found to be most common reasons for residing in old age home.

Conclusions: Many elderly in India are opting OAHs as their place of stay in their later life. Foreseeing the future the government and voluntary agencies in India must make arrangements for institutional support and care for the elderly.

Keywords

Old age home, elderly, compelling factors, exploratory study

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This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

How to cite this article:

S Akbar, S Tiwari, R Tripathi, A Kumar, N Pandev (2014) Reasons for Living of Elderly in Old Age Homes: An Exploratory Study. International Journal of Indian Psychology, 2 (1), DOI: 10.25215/0201.029, DIP: 18.01.029/20140201