[Chronic morbidity and self-perception of health in the elderly of a rural community].

Objectives: To find chronic morbidity, self-perception of health status and its relationship with different socio-economic and health variables, among the elderly in our health area.

Design: A crossover study using a home questionnaire.

Setting: A rural area in Galicia.

Participants: 408 people over 65, chosen by simple random sampling from the census.

Interventions: Data referring to socio-demographic features, chronic morbidity, self-perception of health, use of health services and drugs consumption, were extracted from a previously validated questionnaire containing 100 items.

Results: A high prevalence of chronic pathologies was found. 72% of those surveyed stated that they had some chronic illness, with eye disorders (71%), arthrosis (71%) and hypoacusia (44%) being the most common. 73% said they had taken medicine during the previous fortnight. 32% had consulted a health professional in the previous two weeks. Almost a quarter (23.8%) of those surveyed had self-perception of poor health, which was associated with feminine gender (p = 0.001), drug consumption (p = 0.0002), considering their economic resources insufficient (p = 0.02) and getting on badly with their family (p = 0.008). However, we found no association with living alone, nor with consulting health professionals.

Conclusions: There is high prevalence of chronic illnesses among the elderly. Self-perception of poor health is related not only to health problems, but also to economic and family problems.