Older adults, like any other age group, have a diverse set of health beliefs, health seeking patterns, and health practices, all of which have the potential to influence health behavior and ultimately health outcomes. The purpose of this study was to further the understanding of health behavior among elderly African American women, with 'health behavior' encompassing the combination of health related beliefs, patterns of health seeking behavior, and health practices in relation to both acute health problems and acute episodes of chronic conditions. The investigation was intended to answer two questions: 1. What are the health-related behaviors of older African American women? 2. Are age, education, living arrangement, and marital status related to their perceived health status? This study was both exploratory and descriptive, using content analysis as the method for examining responses related to health behavior among 45 elderly African American women, aged 67 and older living in Allegheny County. The data were originally collected for a supplemental grant to a controlled randomized prospective study entitled Geriatric Health Care and Assessment (RO1 AG08276), funded by the National Institute on Aging in 1992.
Key Concepts of the Noel Chrisman model (1977) for a health seeking process, along with selected questions from the supplemental study's semi-structured questionnaire, provide the organizing framework for this exploration. These concepts include: symptom definition, illness- shifts in role behavior, lay consultation and referral, treatment actions and adherence. Given the importance of perceived health status, this variable was evaluated for relationships with selected demographic characteristics: age, education, income, living arrangement and marital status and other health behavior measures included in the study. In addition, I examined perceptions of care and race and gender preferences since these were themes emerging as a result of the questions asked in the study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04292006-092351 |
| Date | 03 May 2006 |
| Creators | Ford, Angela A. |
| Contributors | Sandra Wexler, PHD, Valire Carr Copeland, PhD, Stephen B. Thomas, Ph.D., Myrna Silverman, Ph.D., Rafael Engel, Ph.D. |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04292006-092351/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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