ABSTRACT
The
purposes of this research were to 1) study the health care
behavior of the elderly in Bangmuang Sub District Municipality, Muang District,
Samutprakan Province and 2) compare the health care
behavior of the elderly classified by demographic factors: gender, marital
status, education attainment, congenital disease, perceived health and
knowledge of health care.
The
sample of this study included 355 people and a set of questionnaire with a
coefficient reliability of 0.94 was used to collect data. The statistics used
in data analysis was descriptive statistics a percentage, mean, and standard
deviation and inferential statistics t-test, one way ANOVA and pair comparison
by using Scheffe’s method.
The
findings of this study revealed that the level of health care behavior of the
elderly in Bangmuang Sub District Municipality, Muang District, Samutprakan
Province had a moderate level in overall, as well as the knowledge of health
care behavior was ahigh level. The level
of health care behavior of the elderly was statistically different by gender,
education attainment, congenital disease, perceived health and knowledge of health
at .05 level of statistical significance except marital status.
The
recommendations of the research are as follows: 1) the health care promotion,
Bangmuang Sub District Municipality, Muang District, Samutprakan Province
should give some advice about healthy food or supplementary food, health care
knowledge, and relaxing muscle after exercise.; 2) For prevention of disease,
Bangmuang Sub District Municipality, Muang District, Samutprakan Province
should continuously enhance knowledge and instruction for solving problems with
others and the pursuit of knowledge about the health care.; 3) For the health
care treatment, Bangmuang Sub District Municipality, Muang
District, Samutprakan Province should give some knowledge to the elderly people
to be aware of buying medicine by themselves and they should take some advices
from a pharmacist. and 4) For the restoration of health, Bangmuang Sub District
Municipality, Muang District, Samutprakan Province should give some advices
about medicine and food for the elderly people who have restorations including
exercise, period of time to exercise and muscle relaxation after exercise.