[Gender differences in lifestyles of the middle-aged and the elderly--a study in Satomi village, Ibaraki, Japan].
The purpose of this study was to examine the gender differences in the total lifestyles of the middle-aged and the elderly. A self-administered questionnaire was employed to assess the lifestyles of inhabitants aged 40 years and over. Only 400 middle-aged and elderly who lived in Satomi village, Ibaraki Prefecture were randomly sampled for this study. Though the questionnaires contained 99 items such as nutrition, exercise, cigarette use, alcohol use, rest; we used only 84 items in this study. Satomi village is a rural area with a population size of approximately 4,500 and an aging rate of 25.9%. Questionnaires were sent to the subjects by mail. The response proportion was 90%, and the valid response proportion was 85.3%. Subjects included 155 men and 186 women. The average age of all subjects was 61.5 +/- 12.0 years old: males; 60.8 +/- 11.5 years old, females; 62.1 +/- 12.4 years old. Gender differences were assessed for selected items with the chi 2 test. Women tended to have significantly better health habits on items such as nutrition, alcohol intake, and cigarette use (p < 0.05). Factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to separate the items. Three factors that had eigenvalues substantially > 1.0 were extracted and explained 49.7% of the total variance. Factor 1 reflects health promotional activities; Factor 2 denotes health preventive activities; Factor 3 reflects the avoidance of health risk. Though gender differences were not observed for Factor 1 (p = 0.8647), they were seen for Factor 2 (p = 0.0003) and Factor 3 (p = 0.0001) with the Wilcoxon rank sum test. Wilks'lambda test was utilized as likelihood ratio test mean vectors of Factor 1, Factor 2, and Factor 3 (p = 0.0001). The results of the Wilks'lambda test indicated significant gender differences. Our findings suggest significant gender differences in the total lifestyles, but not in the individual lifestyle habits.
Saito
T
T
Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tsukuba.
Sakuragi
C
C
Ueji
M
M
Takahashi
H
H
Kano
K
K
D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011897:Random Allocation; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012737:Sex Factors; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires