In this study, I conducted survey with 300 senior citizens over 65 who engaged in farming currently elderly men and women in Taean, Chungnam. Among 300 questionaries, only 299 ones acquired, and it was used to analyze data. This study is aiming at dis...
In this study, I conducted survey with 300 senior citizens over 65 who engaged in farming currently elderly men and women in Taean, Chungnam. Among 300 questionaries, only 299 ones acquired, and it was used to analyze data. This study is aiming at discovering the relationship between physical health of elderly people who live in rural areas and medical service use of health promoting behavior. The findings are summarized as follows.
First, ADL, subjective physical status and the number of chronic disease were used to measure the physical health of elderly people of rural areas, it reveals that average point of ADL is 4.92, subjective health condition lies in average 3.14 out of 5, chronic illness in average 1.95, which implies that the overall health condition is relatively good. The reason behind their poor health, 60.9 % of elderly people mentioned the tough farm work, also 44.7% of respondents said, they will get better if they quit farming. The health care services of rural elderly use is divided into five categories, checking patients' treatment for some disease, the number of available hospital, the possibility of full recovery, the number of medical service, the health care cost. According to study, 46.4% of respondents said that they have a medical treatment only, in case of serious condition, 81.1% said they commonly use local clinics and hospitals, and 44.8% said they will continue current health condition with the question of their possibility of full recovery. Besides, the number of using medical center is 4.96 times a month and monthly health care cost is average ₩109300. On the other hand, health promoting behavior is consists of health value and health control, the latter shows 3.58point and the former indicates 4.22.
Second, when it comes to the difference in ADL in demographic characteristics of rural elderly people, the people who have higher education, economic level awareness, and older age level have higher ADL points, while those who have higher education, annual mean income, economic level awareness and older age level have higher subjective health status. On the other hand, the elderly people who have lower education, annual mean income, economic level awareness, and older age have more chronic diseases. When we look at the number of treatment, female senior citizens have more treatment than the male counterparts, also those who have older age, lower education, lower annual mean income, lower economic level awareness and the elderly person who lives alone have a medical service more frequently. Senior citizens with lower annual mean income and older age have a medical treatment only their symptoms are serious, while senior citizens with higher annual mean income, higher economic level awareness and younger age shows strong confidence in full recovery.
In case of the elderly people who don't engage in farming, those who have younger age, lower education, shows the highest point that "they'll recover fully."in health condition awareness. When it comes to health control, christianity, catholicism come ahead of others, Buddhism follows. Third, the relationship between physical health of senior citizens and medical service use of health promoting behavior shows that those who have a good physical condition, and use medical service regularly have a high health promoting behavior. Therefore, it is necessary to develop health promoting behavior and education program to raise awareness about health of elderly people, establish medical center all across country to provide a variety of medical service.