Self-care actions of healthy middle-aged women to promote well-being.

The purpose of this study was to describe self-care actions that healthy middle-aged women perform to promote well-being. The heterogenous sample of black and white women (N = 153) ranged in age from 40 to 59. Subjects responded to a structured interview guide based on Orem's Theory of Self-Care and a developmental change list. Women identified 8,693 diverse self-care actions that promote well-being. Using content analysis, actions were categorized by the purpose for which the action was performed. The majority were related to universal self-care requisites, with self-care actions related to categories of activity and social interaction most frequently cited. One fourth were self-care actions related to developmental changes experienced in middle age. Many self-care actions were performed to meet multiple purposes or requisites. When demographic variables were correlated with self-care actions, education, age, and number of children were significantly correlated with types of self-care actions.