A Study of Health Care Behaviors among Elderly People in Ban Pa Pu Village, Pha Bong Sub-district, Mueang District, Mae Hong Son Province

Abstract

This study employed a descriptive design to examine health care behaviors among elderly people and to investigate predisposing factors, enabling factors, and reinforcing factors affecting health care behaviors of elderly residents in Ban Pa Pu Village, Pha Bong Sub-district, Mueang District, Mae Hong Son Province, based on the PRECEDE Framework. The framework comprises predisposing factors, enabling factors, and reinforcing factors. Data were collected from 155 elderly participants using questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that the majority of elderly participants were female (52.3%), with a mean age of 70.97 years, primary education level (49.0%), married status (80.6%), unemployed (50.3%), monthly income below 3,000 baht (92.9%), with elderly allowance as the main source of income (82.6%), living with spouse (72.3%), and having chronic diseases (55.5%), with hypertension being the most common (38.7%). For predisposing factors, most elderly people had a high level of health awareness (87.8%). For enabling factors, elderly people had moderate access to healthcare services (54.2%). For reinforcing factors, elderly people received a high level of social support (67.1%) and had moderate access to health information (62.6%). Regarding health care behaviors, most elderly people had moderate-level health care behaviors (89.1%), with moderate dietary behaviors (93.6%), low exercise behaviors (61.2%), and moderate stress management behaviors (71.7%).Research recommendations include developing accessible healthcare services, promoting exercise policies for the elderly, developing appropriate health information systems, enhancing the capacity of village health volunteers, and continuously promoting mental health and stress management among the elderly.