지역사회 노인의 건강행위와 삶의 질에 관한 연구 = A Study of Relationship of Health Behavior and quality of Life in the Rural Elderly

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The level of health perception and health behavior are highly related to the level of a person's quality of life. The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship of perceived knowledge of health and health behavior being practiced in daily life, and to prove the effect on quality of life in the rural elderly.
The subjects of this study were 62 male and 421 female elderly, over the age of 60, registered and managed in S-Gun Medical Center which is located in Chonnam Province, Korea. The data were collected from September through November, 1999.
The instruments used in this study were the health assessment tool for the aged, developed by Choi and Kim(1997) and the life satisfaction scale developed by Diener, et al. (1985).
The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, t-test. pearson correlation coefficients ANOVA and stepwise multiple regression. The results of this study are as follows-'
1. Individual health behavior showed a significant positive correlation with gender, age, occupation, family type, education level, religion. The level of health behavior practice was high in the elderly who were younger, educated highly, male, religious, employed and living together with family members.
2. Quality of life showed significant positive correlation with gender, age, occupation, family type, education level, religion. The level of quality of life was high in the elderly who were younger, more educated, religious, employed and living together with family members.
3. Individual general health behaviors are statistically correlated with individual health perception. The more perception about health on physical, emotional, social, and spiritual aspects, the higher practice of health behavior.
4. Quality of life is statistically correlated with the practice of health behaviors in physical, emotional, social, spiritual and general aspects. Especially, individual health behaviors related to emotional aspects which were characterized by 'having spent a day joyfully' and 'having a quiet and easy life' showed a high correlation with individual quality of life.
5. Factor analysis revealed that the practice of health behavior related to emotional aspects(24.7%) significantly influenced the quality of life.
In conclusion, the result of this study show that emotional aspects are more important than other aspects (physical, social and spiritual aspects). Therefore, nursing needs to focus more on the emotional aspects of the health promotion program in order to improve the quality of life for Korean rural elderly.