INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL ACTIVITY ON ELDERLY (AGED 65+) SURVIVAL IN IDIKAN, IBADAN, OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

There was a dearth of information on the relationship between social activities and survival of Nigerians at older age. This study provides some knowledge on the influence of social activity on the longevity of some Nigerians in Oyo State. The main purpose of the study was to identify the relationship between social activities and survival of the aged (65+) in Idikan area of Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria, after adjusting for potential confounders. This was a retrospective study, and a secondary analysis of data generated from a larger longitudinal prospective study. The study population consisted of all the elderly persons, aged 65 years and above living in Idikan area of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria who were recruited into the Ibadan-Indianapolis Dementia Research Project at the initial stage in 1992/1993. The sampling method adopted was a total sampling of the entire study population. Detailed information on the subjects' socio demographic background, life style and health history were collected at baseline in 1992/1993 with mortality follow-up of 17 years. Simple descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data and appropriate test statistics used to investigate relationship between variables. Kaplan Meier Curve and Cox regression model were used to describe and model survival from the start of the study to the end, examining the influence of the variables collected on survival and adjusting for potential confounders with p-value <-0.05 and a 95% confidence interval. SPSS 11.0 for Windows was used to run the entire analyses. The studied population size was N= 2, 485. About 9% of the population was of age 85 years and above with majority (72.1 %) between the age of 65-74 years and a male to female ratio of 1:2. A higher proportion of those who had impaired cognition, not socially active and males had died including those ever smoke and drink. The overall median survival time for the 17 years mortality fo llow up period was estimated to be 8 years with the probabi lity of surviving past it, approximately half. Kaplan Meir Curve showed that those who were not socially active presented with a poor survival than their counterpart and this was statistically significant at 5% levels. Cox regression model result showed that participation in social activities, gender, age, literacy status, presence of chronic disease(s) and cognitive status had influence on survival except for living arrangement, alcohol consumption and smoking that were not significant at p :5 0.05. The study showed that those who were socially active were almost one and a half times more likely to live longer than those who were not socially active with p-value of 0.000 and a 95% C.I of 1.358 to 1.743. Conclusion: Participation in social activity was found to be preventive measure against early death. It contributed considerably to achieving longevity and these highlights the need to consider formulating programs surrounded with social activities for elderly people in the society, aimed at promoting longer life.