A path analysis of self-care of elderly women in a rural area of southern Taiwan.

Abstract

For rural elderly women in Taiwan, in addition to poor economic situations and limited health resources, changing traditional roles and responsibilities and changing family structures further aggravate their conditions of health. Self-care was considered as a strategy or a form of coping to enhance the health and quality of life of these women during their aging process. To design an effective health-promotion program for elderly women, therefore, understanding their self-care model is important for health care professionals. The purpose was to use a path analysis to test a model of self-care in predicting the direct and indirect effects of selected key variables on self-care among rural elderly women. A non-experimental, cross-sectional study was designed to test the proposed hypotheses and the paths in a causal model of self-care. Of the 200 elderly women invited to participate, 192 completed all interview questions. The proposed causal model was tested with a path analysis, using the LISREL 8 program. The resultant model showed that the chi square was 3.65 with four degrees of freedom. The p-value for the resultant model was 0.46, revealing that the model fit the data and it was, therefore, retained. In addition to the chi 2 test, other fit indices also indicate the model fit the data well. In the resultant model, 56.0% of the total variance in self-care was accounted for by age, socioeconomic status, perceived health status, and social support (p < 0.001); 16.4% of the total variance in social support was accounted for by age, socioeconomic status, and marital status (p < .001); and 7.3% of the total variance in perceived health status was accounted for by social support (p < .001). The implications of nursing practice and research were discussed based on the findings.