Impact of Community Interventions on Quality of Life of Rural Elderly: A Pilot Study Report

Introduction/Objective: Quality of life refers to older adults’ subjective expression of their health, living conditions, and satisfaction to the old age condition, may vary between urban and rural condition. The growing older age resulted in functional, psychological and social impairment affecting in their quality of life. So, this study was conducted with the aim of improving quality of life of elderly by providing structured interventions. Methods: A community interventional study was conducted among eleven older people aged 60 to 75 years in ward no. 9 of Roshi rural municipality, by interview using Nepalese version of quality of life tool in September 2021. After baseline observation by home visiting, intervention was provided for six weeks, twice a week, 90 minutes of each session, in their community then impact was assessed by post intervention observation, adopting inferential statistics. Results: The study revealed the remarkable impact of community intervention on quality of life; all of its' domains (physical, psychological, social relationship and environmental) were significantly improved (p=<0.001). Elderly health related habits were also improved like eating pattern (50% to 100%), eight hours sleeping (40% to 90%) and regular physical exercise (0% to 80%). Conclusion: Community intervention is very effective to improve the quality of life of elderly from a cost as well as program point of view. It helps to improve all four domains of quality of life as well as health related personal habits of the elderly such as daily food and water intake, regular exercise, sleeping hour, health check­up and leisure time activities. Thus, it is strongly recommended to provide community health interventions for older people in rural areas. Key words: Quality of Life, Community Interventions, Elderly, Rural Community