Social Determinants of Health Research Center and Department of Public Health, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran.
Research Center for Health Sciences and Department of Ergonomics, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran.
BMC Geriatr. 2022 Jul 30;22(1):630. doi: 10.1186/s12877-022-03320-z.
Older adults are one of the most vulnerable groups to the undesirable effects of low health literacy. Inadequate health literacy in older adults is associated with decreased physical activity, deviation from the path of health, and suffering from various diseases. Considering the role and importance of health literacy in promoting physical activity and improving health in older adults and the hypothesis that there are certain factors associated with health literacy in the field of physical activity, this study is aimed at understanding the factors related to older adults' health literacy about physical activity.
This study is a qualitative study on older adults 60 to 75 years old in retirement centers in Kermanshah, Iran, in 2020. Totally, 25 participants were recruited through purposeful sampling with maximum variation until data saturation. The data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews and analyzed using directed qualitative content analysis.
By analyzing the manuscripts obtained from the interviews, 59 initial codes were extracted, which were reduced to 32 main codes after careful assessment. The main codes were grouped into 13 subcategories under 5 categories. Subcategories are the detected factors that are related to health literacy and categories are the five aspects of health literacy including access, reading skill, comprehension, evaluation and decision-making, and application of information. Health literacy was the main theme that encompassed the categories.
This study provided a comprehensive understanding of beliefs, opinions and factors related to older adults' health literacy about physical activity. According to these findings, physical problems and diseases are not obstacles to making decisions and applying physical activity information in older adults who have a high understanding and proper evaluation of physical activity recommendations. Support, advertising, and organizational facilities are related to all dimensions of older adults' health literacy about physical activity, while socio-economic factors are related to the dimensions of access, comprehension, decision-making, and application of information. The factors related to older adults' health literacy about physical activity that were identified in this study, can be used by organizations that are responsible for policy-making, decision-making, and implementing physical activity promotion programs to improve the health in older adults.
老年人是健康素养低的不良影响最易受影响的群体之一。老年人健康素养不足与体力活动减少、偏离健康轨迹以及各种疾病有关。考虑到健康素养在促进老年人体力活动和改善健康方面的作用和重要性，以及体力活动领域与健康素养相关的某些因素的假设，本研究旨在了解与老年人体力活动健康素养相关的因素。
这是 2020 年在伊朗克尔曼沙阿的退休中心对 60 至 75 岁老年人进行的一项定性研究。总共通过最大变异的目的抽样招募了 25 名参与者，直到数据饱和。通过深入的半结构式访谈收集数据，并使用定向定性内容分析进行分析。
通过分析访谈获得的手稿，提取了 59 个初始代码，经过仔细评估后减少到 32 个主要代码。主要代码被分为 5 个类别下的 13 个子类别。子类别是与健康素养相关的已检测因素，类别是健康素养的五个方面，包括获取、阅读技能、理解、评估和决策以及信息应用。健康素养是涵盖这些类别的主题。
本研究全面了解了与老年人体力活动健康素养相关的信念、意见和因素。根据这些发现，在对体力活动建议有较高理解和适当评估的老年人中，身体问题和疾病并不是做出决策和应用体力活动信息的障碍。支持、宣传和组织设施与老年人体力活动健康素养的所有方面都有关，而社会经济因素与获取、理解、决策和信息应用等方面有关。本研究确定了与老年人体力活动健康素养相关的因素，负责制定政策、决策和实施体力活动促进计划的组织可以利用这些因素来改善老年人的健康。
