Factors Predicting Dementia Preventive Behaviors among Older Persons in Rural Communities, Chiang Rai Province

Abstract

Dementia affects older persons, families, society, and the country in many ways. Good dementia prevention behaviors of older persons can help prevent or delay the onset of dementia. This predictive correlational study aimed to examine protective motivation behaviors for dementia prevention, dementia prevention behaviors, and the predictive power of disease prevention motivation on dementia prevention behaviors among elderly individuals in rural communities. The participants included 160 older adults selected through multi-stage sampling. Data collection instruments comprised a demographic data questionnaire, a protection motivation behaviors questionnaire, and a dementia prevention behavior questionnaire. The instruments demonstrated content validity indices of 0.88 and 0.93 with reliability coefficients of 0.91 and 0.80, respectively. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation, and stepwise multiple linear regression analysis.

The research findings revealed that the participants demonstrated a high level of dementia prevention behavior (Mean = 3.53, SD = 0.42). They exhibited a moderate level of motivation to prevent dementia overall (Mean = 3.38, SD = 0.57), with protection motivation behaviors in terms of disease severity perception (Mean = 2.96, SD = 0.78) and disease risk perception (Mean = 3.22, SD = 0.88). However, the participants showed a high level of disease prevention effectiveness perception (Mean = 3.71, SD = 0.66) and self-efficacy confidence (Mean = 3.88, SD = 0.61). The study found that disease prevention motivation factors, particularly disease prevention expectation and disease protection motivation behaviors could together predict dementia prevention behavior at 31.5% (p < .05). The most predictive behavior for preventing the development of dementia was the expectation of self-efficacy in disease prevention (β = 0.420, p < .001), followed by the expectation of the perceived effectiveness of disease prevention (β = 0.204, p < .05).

Given the study's findings, nurses should encourage the elderly to be motivated to prevent disease, particularly in terms of the expectation of self-efficacy in disease prevention and the expectation of perceived effectiveness of disease prevention.