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Learning Objective 1: understand the factors influencing physical activity of community-dwelling elders.
Learning Objective 2: learn the importance of self-efficacy and health belief on physical activity in community-dwelling elders.
Design: One hundred and forty-five community-dwelling elders age 55 or over were interviewed and completed a structured questionnaire. The instruments used in this study including: Barthel Index, Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale, Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly, Exercise Self-efficacy, Perceived Barrier and Benefit Scale, Framingham Cardiovascular Risk Scale, SF-36 Quality of Life Scale. Data was analyzed by using SPSS/PC 11.5 to obtain descriptive analysis, Pearson's correlation, and multiple regression analysis.
Results: 25% of community-dwelling elders had no regular physical activity. Physical activity was associated with gender, marriage, medication, disease status, systolic blood pressure, exercise self-efficacy, perceived barrier, and quality of life. Elders with higher exercise self-efficacy and lower perceived barrier had higher physical activity. Physical activity was also positively correlated with systolic blood pressure. Elders with higher physical activity had higher quality of life. Multiple regression analysis showed that a total of 42.6% of variance of physical activity was explained by quality of life, self-efficacy, risk factors and body mass index.
Conclusion: This study suggests that health care professionals should assess the elders' demographic data, cardiovascular risk factors, self-efficacy, and physical functioning. A comprehensive and adequate teaching program based on the individual learning needs was necessary to promote regular physical activity and quality of life for the community-dwelling elders.
Key words: physical activity, cardiovascular risk factors, quality of life, self-efficacy.
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