FACTORS AFFECTING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ELDERLY HEALTH PROMOTION SYSTEMS

Abstract

The objectives of this research article were 1) to study the current issue of elderly health promotion systems and 2) to study the factors that affect the effectiveness of elderly health promotion systems. This research was a mixed-method design. In qualitative approach, content analysis was used to analyze the secondary data and data from interviews with 17 specialists whereas the secondary data was also used to analyze in quantitative approach. The results found that 1) the current issue of elderly health promotion systems has a structure and mechanism that operates with several units according to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of the Older Persons group which is in accordance with the National Strategy. The operational strategies were the strategy for healthy elderly and the strategy for dependent elderly. In addition, the results found that 2) there are two factors that affect the effectiveness of elderly health promotion systems. The first one is the service factors that are the promoting desirable health behavior in the elderly and the quality of health care units which has a positively significant direct effect (β = .494, p < .05) on the effectiveness of elderly health promotion systems. Another factor is the human resources in health factors; the number of village health volunteers (VHVs) has a positively significant indirect effect (β = .163, p < .05) on the effectiveness of elderly health promotion systems. The suggestion is that the Bureau of Elderly Health, Department of Health 1) should promote desirable health behavior in the elderly operations in order to reach the Ministry of Public Health’s standard and 2) should provide an adequate number of VHVs so that the elderly could be taken care of thoroughly.