Abstract
Background: The Saudi Arabian population increases as the world population increases. With the improvements in the healthcare system, the aging Saudi population; specifically at the age of 60 years and above, is increasing and is projected to reach 2 million in 2050. We aimed to address this issue by evaluating Saudi older adults (>= 60 years old) perception of themselves and their subjective health compared with their current health status.
Method: This cross-sectional study included 328 Saudi participants aged 60 years and above, who lived in the Makkah region, from July 2019 to June 2020. For data collection, we used the Canadian Study of Health and Aging questionnaire (OSHA), which was sent to the participants or their caregivers if they could not answer it by themselves. Correlations between variables were assessed using bivariate analysis.
Result: Most of our participants (82.01%) perceived their health as "very or pretty good," which was statistically significant with income (p = 0.01), age (p < 0.01), and marital status (p = 0.03). In addition, 60.37% were happy with their life; however, this perception only positively correlated with health (p < 0.001) and income (p = 0.001). Most of them (89.94%) were also satisfied with their life; this outlook positively correlated with age (p = 0.02), income (p = 0.019), health (p < 0.001). and comorbidities (p = 0.026).
Conclusion: Overall, most Saudi older adults. regardless of age, gender, marital status, income, and multiple comorbidities, had a positive perception of life because of socioeconomic factors and an efficient healthcare system.