The Association between Health Beliefs and Fall-Related Behaviors and Its Implication for Fall Intervention among Chinese Elderly

Fenfen Li, Deding Zhou, Yue Chen, Yan Yu, Ning Gao, Juanjuan Peng and Shumei Wang
Additional contact information
Fenfen Li: School of Public Health, Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety, Ministry of Education, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
Deding Zhou: Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai 200336, China
Yue Chen: School of Epidemiology and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1G 5Z3, Canada
Yan Yu: Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai 200336, China
Ning Gao: Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai 200336, China
Juanjuan Peng: Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai 200336, China
Shumei Wang: School of Public Health, Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety, Ministry of Education, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 23, 1-15

Abstract: To apply the Health Belief Model (HBM) to fall prevention of the elderly and estimate fall health beliefs and their relationships with fall-related behaviors, a citywide cross-sectional study was conducted among people aged 60 years or over in 13 out of 16 districts in Shanghai, China, in September 2018. A total of 5833 participants were investigated. Of this, 43.4% were male; 48.8% were aged 60–69; 18.1% were uneducated; and 50.3% were living in urban areas. People who were older, less educated, living in rural areas generally had lower scores in the 7 HBM dimensions and also had lower proportions of fall risk-reduction behaviors, except that the less educated elderly were more likely to participate in exercise and training and the rural elderly were more likely to check house environment and participate in exercise and training ( p < 0.001). The HBM dimensions were generally positively correlated with the risk-reduction behaviors except that “perceived severity” was negatively correlated with four risk-reduction behaviors and behavior number, “cues to action” was negatively correlated with purchasing shoes, and “perceived benefits” was negatively correlated with participating in exercise activities and fall prevention training ( p < 0.05). When HBM is applied in the field of fall prevention, the interpretation of the results of each dimension has its characteristics in the fields of injury research. Fall prevention strategies should focus on improving the health beliefs and behaviors in those who were older, less educated and living in rural areas, implementing different levels of fall prevention activities to meet different needs, improving the accessibility and applicability of related resources, and raising the organizational level of related fall prevention activities.

Keywords: falls; the elderly; health belief; risk behavior; association (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/23/4774/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/23/4774/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:23:p:4774-:d:291989

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().