Haque Sarhandi M Ishaque, Yahya Aamir, Danish Fatima.
Psychiatric Morbidity in Old Age: A Multi Centre Study to Assess the Needs (in Sindh).
J Dow Uni Health Sci Jan ;10(3):98-102.

Objectives: Pakistan is one of the most thickly populated Muslim countries. The unpredicted aging process brings about challenges to the society and the health care system as well. In Pakistan the Psychiatrists have to face lot many problems in managing elderly patients as Geriatric psychiatry has not even made its advent in this Country. In view of the above facts this study was designed to find the magnitude of psychiatric problems faced by our elderly population, further more to find out about any separate services offered to this part of community at any centre within the province of Sindh. Study Design: Observational Study. Methods: Three proformas was developed namely A, B, C. Proforma ‘A’ assessed the demographic data along-with inter categorization of them into age groups. The proforma ‘B ’ was designed to assess the diagnostic breakup among the age group of proforma ‘A’, while proforma ‘C’ looked into the established psychiatric services for elderly patients in psychiatry.The proformas were sent to all the Psychiatrists working in province of Sindh, their feedback was collected giving them adequate time to put down all the cases seen by them from1st Jan: to 30th June 2006.Results: Have shown that more than 25000 patients attended the psychiatric facilities during the study in province of Sindh with different psychiatric disorders, without having any separate psychiatric facility to cater their problems. Conclusion: This is alarming as at present there is no separate facility available to cater the ailing elderly population in discipline of psychiatry in our Province. This effort will discuss how we can improve this situation.

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