| Abstract: | Background: Many factors have been associated with development of chronic diseases. Previous literatures demonstrated people with spouse have lower risks of chronic diseases. However, in Taiwan, little is known about the association between chronic diseases and married status of elder people.
Aim: This study aimed to determine the effect of different married status on development chronic diseases in elder Taiwan people.
Method: We used collected data from “the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Middle Aged and Elderly in Taiwan” within 1999 and 2003. There were 4,400 people with the age more than 53 year old in 1999. After excluding people with cancers, hypertension, heart diseases, diabetes, incomplete medical data, and those who was dead in the following 4 months, 1844 people were enrolled. We analyzed the effects of different married status on hypertension, diabetes, and heart diseases 4 years later utilizing IBM SPSS statistics 21.0 software.
Result: People with divorced, widowed, or separated status had higher risks of heart diseases, with statistically significance(OR 1.475, p=0.02). People who were married or not showed no significant different risks of heart diseases. In addition, different married status resulted no impact on risk of developing diabetes or hypertension.
Conclusion: This study showed the married patient had lower risks of heart disease comparing with divorced, separated, widowed, and singled people. This suggests the importance of marriage. Abroad study confirmed unmarried had higher risk in hypertension, heart disease and death due to heart disease than those are married. The single with psychological status (long-term stress and fewer social support), economic pressure and other factors is difficult to have a positive healthy attitude. How to establish a good social, and mental support for self-care, disease prevention and control, development of social relationships in elderly is important for disease prevention. Therefore, the Government's proposal "population policy white paper" policy should be more actively promoted. |
