title: Self-care actions of healthy middle-aged women to promote well-being.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington.
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Hartweg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009742:Nursing Theory; D012648:Self Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016387:Women's Health