فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

INTRODUCTION: Financial support system available to geriatric populations affects their adherencelevel to the prescribed treatment leading to a rise in chronic disease burden.OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to ascertain the disease pattern, health expenditure, andadherence to the prescriptions among geriatric patients reporting to a hospital in North India.METHODOLOGY: This descriptive, cross‑sectional study was conducted from July 2017 to June2018. Patients who were 60 or above years in age, already diagnosed and were on treatment formore than 3 months were included in the study. A total of 310 patients were selected using convenientsampling method. Data were collected by a pretested and validated questionnaire.RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 66.16 years ± 5.37 years (54.8% males). Monthlyaverage family income was Rs. 15202.97 ± 1134.63. Overall, 25% of the treatment cost was metthrough various social schemes (52% = pension scheme, 32% of patients had no such schemesand only 2% through health insurance schemes). Rest was out‑of‑pocket expenditure. Commondiseases were hypertension (60.64%), diabetes mellitus (35.8%), cancer (28.38%), and coronaryartery disease (22.58%). More than half (52.9%) of the patients had two or more illnesses; about35.8% of them were taking treatment for 1–5 years. Moderate adherence was observed among themajority of the patients. Statistically significant (P < 0.05) difference in treatment adherence to theprescriptions was observed.CONCLUSION: Geriatric patients had many chronic morbidities. They had high out‑of‑pocketexpenditure and suboptimal financial support affecting their level of adherence to the prescriptions.