Holistic health assessment among the adult population of an urbanized village of South Delhi, India

Abstract

Introduction: Holistic health is an integrated model for providing not only physical, mental, and social dimensions of health but also spiritual, ethical, environmental, economic, religious, cultural, and international relations.

Objectives: To assess holistic health concepts and practices among the adult population of South Delhi. To identify the role of body, mind, and spirit in health and wellness. To study the association of holistic health with socio-demographic variables.

Material and methods: It was a community-based, cross-sectional, descriptive study of one year duration. People residing in an urbanized village of South Delhi for more than 6 months and who were more than 18 years old, were study participants. Nonprobability Convenient sampling was used for data collection. A pre-tested, semi-structured, interviewer-based holistic health assessment Questionnaire was used. The data was entered in MS Excel and then analyzed in SPSS Version 23. Descriptive analysis was done by calculating proportions, mean, and standard deviation. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC). Informed consent was taken from each participant before data collection.

Results: A total of 384 study participants were included in the present study. Less than half (48.7%) of the study population had fair health, followed by below-average health in nearly 29.7% of study subjects. More males (34.3%) had below satisfactory health than females (21.3%), and this difference was statistically significant. More than half (55.6%) of the younger population had below satisfactory health. More than one-fourth (33%) Hindu population had below satisfactory health, while it was somewhat better in other religions. Nearly half of the working population (45.4%) had below satisfactory health.

Conclusion: One-third of the study population has below-average holistic health, which varies with gender, age, and religion. Further in-depth studies are required to understand the lower level of health and its variation.