FACTORS RELATED TO HEALTH PROMOTING BEHAVIORS AMONG THE ELDERLY IN NONG SANO SUB-DISTRICT, SAM NGAM DISTRICT, PICHIT PROVINCE

Abstract

The purpose of this correlational research aimed to study health promoting behaviors and factors related to health promoting behaviors among the elderly in Nong Sano Sub-district, Sam Ngam District, Phichit Province. The samples were randomly selected through multi-stage random sampling technique, consisted of 183 elderly. The research instruments were questionnaires and knowledge-test, which were tested for the content validity at the level of 0.66-1, the reliability of 0.72-0.88, and the difficulty of 0.57-0.73. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, which were frequency, percentage, average, and standard deviation. The inferential statistics was Pearson's Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. The results revealed that the elderly in Nong Sano Sub-district, Sam Ngam District, Phichit Province had high level of promoting health behaviors. The factors that related to health promoting behaviors of those elderly consists of attitude toward health promoting behaviors (r=0.235, p=0.001), information receiving (r=0.515, p<0.001), participating in elderly club (r=0.321, p<0.001), advisory by family (r=0.386, p<0.001), and accessing to health services system (r=0.248, p=0.001) by the overall statistical significance at the level of 0.05. The result of this research can be useful for the project planning of developing and improving health promoting behaviors of the elderly.