Prevalence of disability and its association with sociodemographic factors and quality of life in a rural adult population of northern India.

ABSTRACT

Background: Globally, around 1 billion persons are disabled as per the WHO report on disability in 2011. The bio-psycho-social model of disability was developed by the WHO as the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. We studied the prevalence of disability and its association with sociodemographic factors and quality of life among adults in a rural area. Methods: We did a community-based, cross-sectional study among 418 randomly selected adult participants aged 18 years and above in a rural area of Ballabgarh, Haryana. Participants were interviewed by administering WHO Disability Assessment Schedule 2.0 (WHODAS 2.0) for assessing disability and WHO Quality of Life-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) scale for assessing quality of life. Multivariate analyses were done for the predictors of disability. Correlation was applied to find the association between disability and quality of life. Results: The prevalence of disability was 7.7% (95% confidence interval [CI] 5.3%-10.6%) based on the cut-off > 40 summary score. More women (10.9%) than men (4.1 %) were disabled (p = 0.009). Being ≥60 years of age was independently associated with disability (adjusted odds ratio 12.3; 95% CI 4.45-33.97). The mean (SD) of the WHOQOL-BREF health-related quality of life (HRQOL) summary score was 67.6 (11.6) and the median was 66.43. HRQOL summary scores decreased as age increased. There was a negative correlation between summary scores of WHODAS 2.0 and WHOQOL-BREF (r -0.57, p<0.001). Conclusion: Prevalence of disability was higher than the estimate given by Census 2011. The elderly and women experience more disability. As age increases, quality of life decreases. Increase in the level of disability decreases the quality of life.