Factors Related to Health Promoting Behaviors of Young-Old and Old-Old Elderly in Rural Areas

Lee, Myung Suk; Lim, Hyun Ja

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of health promoting behaviors and the significant factors in rural elderly(young-old vs old-old).
METHODS
The data was collected using structured questionnaires from June 22th to Sep. 18th, 2009. A total of 556 elderly aged 65 years or over were selected from 14 rural districts in C province, South Korea. Age was divided into two groups as below 65-74 and 75 or older. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain information on the demographic characteristics, their perceived health status, the difficulty of activities of daily living, quality of life, self-efficacy and health promoting behaviors. The health promoting behaviors included nutrition, stress management, interpersonal support, exercise, health responsibility and self-actualization. The scores for health promoting behaviors were used mean and standard deviation. The data was analyzed using SPSS Win 12.0.
RESULTS
Of the 556 subjects, we found that the young-old(65-74 aged) were 359 and the old-old elderly(over 75 aged) were 197. We found that the level of health promoting behavior was higher for young-old (2.75+/-0.374) compared to old-old elderly people (2.67+/-0.399). In multiple linear regression, quality of life, self-efficacy, living with spouse, and number of generation living together for the young-old, and quality of life for old-old elderly were significantly associated with health promoting behaviors.
CONCLUSIONS
The study findings indicate that there are age differences in associated factor of health promoting behaviors. Therefore our findings may provide useful assistance in developing effective intervention programs to improve health promoting behavior of the elderly in rural areas according to their age differences.