Survey of health status and quality of life of the elderly in Poland and Croatia.
OBJECTIVE
To describe health status and the quality of life among the Polish and Croatian elderly and explore differences between the countries, as well as patterns of gender and age differences.


METHODS
Randomly chosen elderly aged 65-85 from Krakow (Poland) and from Zagreb and some smaller towns in Croatia were interviewed on health (self-rated health, physical functioning, mental health, perceived bodily pain, hearing and vision ability, morbidity, functional status, loneliness and depression) and general quality of life. The database (528 and 286 interviews with the Polish and Croatian elderly, respectively) was analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis H test, and general linear model procedure.


RESULTS
Significant differences in favor of the Croatian elderly were found in self-rated health and perceived bodily pain (controlled for age, gender, education, and morbidity). The Polish elderly experienced fewer depressive symptoms and reported better vision ability and quality of life in comparison with the Croatian elderly. With some exceptions (hearing and vision ability) the collected data confirmed better health status and quality of life in men in comparison with women in both countries. Significant trends were found in deterioration of health with age. However, the pattern of deteriorating health with age was inconsistent, and more visible among women than among men. Health status results in Poland and Croatia were generally lower in comparison with elderly populations in Western Europe.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings suggest that the broadest possible panel of instruments should be used to describe health within each country and to compare health between the countries. Poor health and quality of life produce a considerable task for public health bodies in Poland and Croatia to equal the standards of the European Union.
Knurowski
Tomasz
T
Department of Medical Sociology, Chair of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Medical Faculty, Jagiellonian University, Kopernika 7 St., 31-034 Krakow, Poland. myknurow@cyf-kr.edu.pl
Lazić
Durdica
D
van Dijk
Jitse P
JP
Geckova
Andrea Madarasova
AM
Tobiasz-Adamczyk
Beata
B
van den Heuvel
Wim J A
WJ
D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D017523:Croatia / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009017:Morbidity; D011044:Poland / Q000453:epidemiology; D011788:Quality of Life; D017678:Sex Distribution; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric