The aging process in prison: pathologies and health conditions in old inmates. An epidemiological research in Italy

Background & Aims. Elderly may suffer from different pathologies during their detention in jail because of their age. Conditions in jails were tough and adapting to that life could be problematic for the elder population. This article aimed to analyse the pathologies and health conditions in a sample of elder inmates from Italy. Methods. The sample was composed by 94 elderly inmates. The research is multicentric. We selected jails from the cities of Bari, Taranto, Foggia, Lecce, Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona and Mantua. The study was conducted by interviewing the prisoners over 60 years of age, in the period between September and December 2017. Results. 64% of the sample was in a “Not Optimal” health status. Most of pathologies were Cardiac pathologies (23.4%), Diabetes (12.8 %) and Surgery (9.6%). Statistically significant differences were found for heart disease (p=0.02) and Neoplasia (p=0.025) in the prison of Bari compared to all the other prisons. Statistically significant differences were found for Hypertension in Foggia and Taranto prisons compared to all the other (p=0.023). Furthermore, 18.1% of inmates ended up having an addiction. Conclusions. Our analysis showed that in our sample physical problems were more frequent than psychological one. In fact, in spite of in the literature there was a high prevalence of mental health problems among elderly inmates, we did not find this result. However, stress conditions may increase the risk of pathologies: for example, being in jail and adapt to new hard environment may increase the risk of getting sick. Heart disease pathologies and diabetes were very common in our sample as confirmed by the literature.