The Study on Health Promoting Lifestyle of the Elderly

Song, Young Shin; Lee, Mi Ra; Ahn, Eun Kyong

Abstract

This study was done to describe health promoting lifestyle and determine affecting factors in elderly based on the Heath Promotion Model by Pender. Cognitive-perceptual factors that were included in this study were self-efficacy and hardiness. Modifying factors were demographic characteristics(sex, age, partner, previous illness, education level, income and religion). The specific purpose of this study was to examine the relationships of self-efficacy, hardiness and the demographic chasteristics to health promoting lifestyle and to determine causal factors affecting the elderly. The subjects were a volunteer sample of 98 elderly in one city in? The instruments for this study were Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile(47items, 4scale), Health Related Hardiness Scale(22items, 6scale), general Self-Efficacy Scale((13items, 5scale). Frequency, percentage, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson's correlation coefficient and Stepwise Multiple regression technique with SAS program were used to analyze the data. The Results of the study are follows ; 1) The average item score for the health promoting lifestyle was 2.63, the highest score on the subscales was interpersonal support(M=3.3), followed by self-actualization(M=2.9), nutrition (M=2.8), stress management(M=2.7), health responsibility(m=2.1) with the lowest being exercise(M=2.0). 2) A significant difference between education level, income, religion and health promoting lifestyle were found. 3) All of the subscales on health promoting lifestyle were positively related to total hardiness(r=0.330, p<0.001). The hardiness subscale of control was positively related to self-actualization(r=0.276, p<0.01), and commitment was positively related to self-actualization(r=0.315, p<0.001), exercise/nutrition(r=0.245, p<0.01), interpersonal support(r=0.278, p<0.01), stress management(r=0.250, p<0.01). Challenge was positively related to self-actualization(r=0.315, p<0.001), exercise/nutrition((r=0.245, p<0.01). There was no significant correlation between self-efficacy and all of the subscales of health promoting lifestyle. Self-efficacy showed a significant correlation only with control(r=0.469, p<0.001), committment(r=0.507, p<0.001), Challenge(r=0.489, p<0.001). 4) Committment, self-efficacy and income explained 25.01% of the variance for the total health promoting lifestyle. The results of this study show that commitment, self efficacy and income predicted the health promoting lifestyle of the elderly. So health promoting programs that increase committment and self-efficacy should be developed to promote a healthy lifestyle of the elderly, especially those who have low income.