Factors Influencing the Participation of the Elderly in Strong Elderly Club, Nakhon Ratchasima Province, Thailand

Abstract

ABSTRACT

The objective of this cross-sectional research was to study factors influencing the participation of the elderly in strong elderly club. The subjects were 350 elderly in Nakhon Ratchasima Province. The data were collected by interview questionnaire during June 15 to August 15, 2006 and analyzed by frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, Pearson product moment correlation coefficient, and Stepwise multiple regression. Results revealed that 57.1% of elderly had low level of participation in the strong elderly club whereas 28.6% and 14.3% participated with the medium and low level respectively. The factors that were statistical significant (p-value < 0.05) influencing the participation of elderly in strong elderly club were, club membership privileges, perception of health condition, social support, and age. In addition, the club membership privileges, perception of health condition, social support and age could significantly predict the participation of elderly in the elderly club by 39.0% with the highest predictive power was club membership privileges.

The study suggests that the Elderly Club Committee should widely advertise the privileges of club membership to encourage family and community to support the elderly to participate in elderly club.

Key words: Participation of the elderly, strong elderly club, club membership privileges