Prevalence and impact factors of disability among elderly people in rural China

Objective To reveal features of disability and its impact factors among the elderly in rural China.Methods The data of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) collected in 2013 were used and the data on the elderly of 60 years and older in rural China were analyzed.The activity of daily living (ADL) and the disability of the rural elderly were assessed with Katz Index Scale.Logistic regression was applied to analyze the influencing factors of disability.Results Valid information for a total of 7 629 rural elderly were extracted from the datasets of CHARLS and 668 of them were identified as disability and the disability prevalence was 8.8%.The highest observed prevalence rate of disability (5.8%) was for bathing activity and the lowest (1.2%) was for eating activity.The results of logistic regression analysis showed that main risk factors for disability were aged ≥ 80 years (odds ratioOR=4.186,95% confidence intervalCI:3.364-5.210),low income (OR=2.689,95% CI:1.832-3.947),suffering from 3 or more chronic diseases (OR=2.301,95% CI:1.827-2.897),poor sleeping quality (OR=1.727,95% CI:1.384-2.155),and poor mental health (OR=2.511,95% CI:1.962-3.214)and a protective factor was drinking alcohol once or more per month (OR=0.530,95% CI:0,417-0.675) among the elderly.Conclusion The prevalence of disability was high among rural elderly in China and intervention measures should be promoted among the population.