Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the self-rated health and to find various factors affecting it for elderly women in a rural community, to provide data necessary to establish health promotion programs for elderly. The subjects of the study included a total of 245 women with above 70 years of age reside in one rural community. VAS (Visual Analogue Scale) for self-rated health, Lawton's physical & instrumental activity of daily living scales, social network were evaluated. The results of the study were as follows: 1. The self-rated health of the elderly women were measured on a 100 point(VAS) scale and the score was 53.6, indicating that women rated their health as moderate. 2. Factors such as income(p=0.008), family size(p=0.031), the level of ADL(p=0.039), urinary symptom(p=0.039), nocturia(p=0.001), visual difficulty(p=0.023), the number of chronic diseases(p=0.015), presence of arthritis or neuralgia(p=0.015), social network(p=0.002), housework assistant(p=0.008), emotional support(p=0.031) were significantly related to self-rated health. 3. Through the stepwise multiple regression, social network, family size, visual difficulty, and housework assistant were identified as significant predictors of self-rated health(p<0.05), explaining $21.0\%$ of the variance of the dependent variable. Better understanding of the determinants of healthy aging hopefully will lead to effective interventions to improve the quality of life of the elderly.

Keywords

• Self-rated health;
• The women elderly;
• A rural community

• 여성노인;
• 건강상태;
• 농촌;