The frequency of chronic diseases and a health-promoting lifestyle in a group of elderly Romani people living in Northern Turkey

Purpose: To analyse the frequency of chronic diseases among Romani people who are sixty and older as well as their health-promoting lifestyle. Materials and methods: This research was conducted as a descriptive study between January 2015 and June 2015. The study included 98 elderly Romani people lived in Samsun, Turkey. The study data were collected using the questionnaire included 22 questions along with the Health-promoting Lifestyle Scale II. The statistical analysis of the data was made using percentage means, t-test, correlation, and ANOVA test. Results: The average age of the participating Romani people was 66.7±5.3. Of these Romani people, 83.7% had a chronic disease, and 80.6% had a medication that they used regularly. The mean score of the Romani citizens in the study sample on the Health-promoting Lifestyle Scale was 115.98±15.82. They obtained their highest score on the inter-personal relations sub-dimension and the lowest score on the stress management sub-dimension of the scale. There was a statistical correlation between the Romani people's gender, social insurance, income level, education level, family type, body mass index (BMI) and blood pressure monitoring and their scores on the scale (p<0.05). The study found that a health-promoting lifestyle did not affect the frequency of chronic diseases (p˃0.05). Conclusions: This study proved that the Romani people had risks of chronic diseases, did not attach sufficient importance to a health-promoting lifestyle and their health-promoting lifestyle is weaker compared to the elders in the rest of the population.