Evaluation of Elderly People’s Access to Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Services in Chaiya District, Suratthani Province

Abstract

              This survey study aimed to evaluate the access to health promotion and disease prevention services for elderly people in Chaiya district, Suratthani Province. The samples 398 were randomly
to interview with structured questionnaire. Data was collected from November 2014–January 2015, then analyzed by computer software and using descriptive statistics.The results indicated that 64.6% were female. The mean age of the sample was 70.8 years. The vast majority of the sample practice
Buddhism which is 89.4%. Health problems were suffered by 73%. The evaluation of screening found that 95.7% of people had access to hypertension screening, 91.5% had access to diabetes screening and 84.7% had access to lipid screening. The evaluation of health promotion and prevention found that 90.2% had access to diet and physical education, 64.6% have had the flu vaccine and 44.2 had access to a lifestyle modification service. The location for elderly people to attend was 33.9% at the community hospital, 15.1% at the health promoting hospital in the sub district and 6.8% at private clinics. Convenience of travel was the main reason for selecting the service location.The findings suggest that elderly people have difficulty accessing screening for health problems such as dementia, lifestyle
modification, and flu vaccination. Therefore, the health care teams need to develop their own systems to give elderly people access to these facilities.