A research report submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
Of
Master of Family Medicine
Johannesburg, July 2014 / BACKGROUND
Physical activity has been consistently shown to play an important role in healthy ageing. While motivators and barriers to regular physical activities among old people residing in old age homes have been studied in other parts of the world, the researcher found no studies on this subject in South Africa. Therefore, the aim of this research was to identify the motivators and barriers to regular exercise in elderly people residing in old age homes in Ekurhuleni Southern sub-district of Gauteng province.
METHODS
This was a descriptive cross sectional study conducted among elderly residents in old age homes in Ekurhuleni Southern Sub-district. A structured questionnaire was administered in the common languages: English, Afrikaans and Zulu. The data was collected by the researcher (assisted by research assistants) from 139 residents in seven old age homes. A Pearson chi square test was used to examine the relationship between participants’ characteristics with regular exercise.
RESULTS
This study showed that having knowledge of exercise benefits (P-value= 0.001) an opportunity to socialize (P-value= 0.001) was statistically associated with regular exercise. Similarly, younger age (P- value= 0.02), high educational attainment (P-value= 0.03), being of white race (P -value= 0.04) were the main motivators to regular exercise. In contrast, poor health (P-value=0.001) and lack of knowledge of exercise benefits (P-value=0.001) were the major barriers to regular exercise.
CONCLUSION
Increasing residents’ knowledge of the benefits of regular exercise, opportunity for socialization and providing support to elderly people are crucial in increasing the uptake and maintenance of regular exercise among elderly people living in old age homes in Ekurhuleni Southern Sub-district.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/17427 |
| Date | 17 April 2015 |
| Creators | Adeniyi, Aro Abiodun |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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