Social Activity Participation of the Social-Bound Elderly in Seven Provinces of Lower Southern Thailand

Abstract

          Social activity participation of elderly promotes their quality of life including physical, mental, and social dimension. This descriptive research aimed to study levels of social activity participation of the social-bound elderly in seven provinces of lower southern Thailand and to compare the differences of the participation of those who were different by gender, residential areas, underlying medical conditions, and sufficiency of income. The sample was 128 social-bound elderly who were randomly recruited by using multistage sample technique. The instrument was a questionnaire which consist of 20 items of social activity participation of the social-bound elderly. Content validity was tested by three experts and the item-objective congruence index (IOC) was .67 - 1.00. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was .88. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and independent-samples t - test. The results revealed that the average score of social activity participation of the social-bound elderly was at moderate level (M = 1.59, SD = 0.54. There were no differences of social activity participation between the social-bound male elderly (M = 1.60, SD =.57) and female (M = 1.58, SD =.59), t(126) = .19, p = .85, between ones who lived in municipal areas (M = 1.57, SD =.57) and district administrative organization (M = 1.60, SD =.54), t(126) = .26, p = .81, between ones without chronic illness (M= 1.65, SD=.62) and with chronic illness (M = 1.56, SD =.50), t(126) = .81, p = .42, and ones who has sufficient incomes (M = 1.53, SD = .54) and one who has insufficient incomes (M = 1.65, SD =.55), t(126) =1.27, p = .21. The study showed no differences in social activity participation of the social - bound elderly who have different gender, income, residential area, and underlying medical condition. Hence, the related agencies should run more variety of activities to meet the elderly’s needs, gender, health status, residential area, as well as their available time.