Cultural diversity and ageing: the importance of broader self-management abilities in addition to health behaviours for physical health, depressive symptoms, and overall well-being among older Turkish immigrants

Abstract

Background: Healthy behaviours and self-management abilities may protect (chronically ill) older migrants from deterioration in their health and well-being and protect for the onset of depressive symptoms. We, however, lack such research. This study, therefore, aims to identify the relationships between background characteristics, health behaviours, self-management abilities, physical health, depressive symptoms and well-being among Turkish older immigrants residing in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Methods: A total of 2,350 older Turkish migrants aged > 65 years residing in Rotterdam the Netherlands were identified using the municipal register of which 680 respondents completed the questionnaires (response rate of 32%). Descriptive statistics were used to describe the study population and correlational and regression analyses were performed to identify the relationship between health behaviors, self-management abilities and physical health, depressive symptoms and well-being. Results: Average age of the respondents was 72.90 (SD, 5.02) (range, 66–95) years and about half of them were women (47.6%). The majority of respondents reported having a low education (80.3%) and low income level (83.4%). The vast majority is chronically ill (90.6%) and far over half has more than one chronic disease (69.4%). Looking at their Body Mass Index (BMI) the vast majority can be considered to be overweight (86.5%) and about half obese (46.0%). More than half of the respondents eat enough fruit (58.2%) and vegetables per week (55.3%). About a third of the respondents smoke (33.5%) and 43.0% can be considered to be physically active (at least 5 times per week active for at least 30 minutes a day). Looking at the health behaviors a weak positive relationship was found between eating enough vegetables and well-being ((β=0.14; p=0.017). In addition, weak relationships were found between physical activity and depressive symptoms (β=-0.16; p=0.007), smoking and depressive symptoms (β=0.16; p=0.009) and self-management abilities and physical health (β=0.17; p=0.015). Strongest relationships were found between self-management abilities and depressive symptoms (β=-0.39; p Conclusions: From this study we can conclude that next to health behaviours broader self-management abilities to maintain overall well-being are important for Turkish older people. Interventions to improve self-management abilities may help Turkish older people better deal with function losses and chronic diseases as they age further.