Factors influencing health behaviors of elders in Mueang district, Roi Et province, Thailand

Abstract

To study health behavior of the elderly in Mueang District, Roi Et Province, concerning exercise, diet, self care during illnesses and stress management, to describe each personal attribution factor, such as, gender, age, educational background, marital status, income, income sufficiency, main source of income and personal illness) by taking into consideration health service system and social environment and to determine factors influencing health behaviors. It was a cross-sectional study with systematic sampling among 430 samples. Data collection was in December 2009. Descriptive statistics was employed (frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation) while Chi-Square test was used to find out the factors associated with their health behaviors . The results found that majority of samples was females (58.6%),aged between60E65 years old (40.5%) ,finished primary school (79.8%), married (63.7%) ,with monthly household income less than 5,000 baht (47.9%), had sufficient income but not enough for saving (41.9%), earned their own income(96.3%), had personal illnesses (57.2%),such as diabetes (46.1%), with consistent follow-up of their chronic disease(99.3%).In regards to their health behaviors, the result revealed that diet behavior was on good level(Χ-bar = 2.68, S.D. = 0.25); exercise behavior was on fair level (Χ-bar = 2.13, S.D. = 0.60); self care behavior was on good level(Χ-bar = 2.69, S.D. = 0.39) and stress management behavior was on good level (Χ-bar = 2.37, S.D. = 0.41). Factors positively associated with health behaviors of elderly were as follows: age and personal illnesses with diet behavior at the statistical significance level of 0.05 (p=0.048,0.008 respectively); gender, educational background and income sufficiency with exercise behavior at the statistical significance level of 0.05 (p=0.002,0.016,<0.001 respectively); marital status with self care behavior at the statistical significance level of 0.05 (p=0.032); gender, educational background and income sufficiency with stress management behavior at the statistical significance level of 0.05 (p=0.045,0.024,0.001 respectively). In the future, there should be the study on health behavior of elders in qualitative method and on other factors that have association with health behavior of elderly.