An Individually Tailored Program to Increase Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors among the Elderly

Sharon Barak (), Tzlil Rabinovitz, Achinoam Ben Akiva-Maliniak, Rony Schenker, Lian Meiry and Riki Tesler
Additional contact information
Sharon Barak: Department of Nursing, School of Health Sciences, Ariel University, Ariel 4076414, Israel
Tzlil Rabinovitz: JDC-Eshel, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Jerusalem 9103401, Israel
Achinoam Ben Akiva-Maliniak: JDC-Eshel, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Jerusalem 9103401, Israel
Rony Schenker: JDC-Eshel, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Jerusalem 9103401, Israel
Lian Meiry: Program in Gerontology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheeva 8410501, Israel
Riki Tesler: Department of Health Systems Management, School of Health Sciences, Ariel University, Ariel 4076414, Israel

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 17, 1-12

Abstract: A healthy lifestyle among the elderly is associated with improved health. However, many older adults are not engaging in such behavior. The purpose of the study was to develop an individually tailored online/telephone program to increase healthy lifestyle behaviors among community-dwelling elderly people. The program includes individually tailored healthy lifestyle recommendations based on participants’ functional level. Community-dwelling elderly people aged 60+ years ( n = 77; mean age: 72.98 ± 6.49) participated in the study. Significant associations were observed between health promotion activities and health status (r = 0.23, p = 0.04) and physical functional level (r = 0.44, p < 0.001). Twenty-seven percent of participants claimed that they learned “a lot” of new things about themselves, and 31% claimed that the recommendations received were new to them. Most participants engaged in the recommendations at least 1–2 times a week. Regression analyses showed that barriers significantly predicted reduced compliance with the health-related recommendations received (adjusted R 2 = 0.18). The main barrier for compliance was inaccessible information about services (32.46% of the participants). The most prevalent facilitator for compliance with the recommendation was health behavior motivation (59.74% of the participants). In conclusion, this study provided evidence on the effectiveness of a multicomponent tailored intervention program among the elderly in increasing health-related knowledge and behavior about the recommendations.

Keywords: elderly; healthy lifestyle; healthy behaviors; health promotion programs; compliance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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