Objective To determine the prevalence of diseases and its association with the sociodemographic factors (age, sex and ethnicity) among elderly patients admitted to a tertiary hospital in Malaysia.
Design A cross sectional study was conducted at various wards in the year of 2002. There were 9 333 respondents in this study selected by universal sampling. Setting A tertiary hospital in Malaysia. Main outcome measures Association between sociodemographic factors and prevalence of diseases. Results The mean age of the respondents was 68.9 + 6.8 years. Majority of the respondents were male (53.3%), Malays (43.7%) and married (73.2%). The prevalence of neoplasm was 15.5% followed by cataract (7.2%), diabetes mellitus (5.0%), hypertension (4.7%) and anemia (0.5%). There were significant association between gender and hypertension, diabetes mellitus, anemia and cataract (p