title: Daily living practice of the life-satisfied Thai elderly.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the life satisfaction of Thai elderly depends on their daily living practice. A comparative design was used to study 73 matched pairs of elderly people who perceive themselves as life satisfied or life dissatisfied. Scores of 85% and above on the life satisfaction instrument were used as a criteria to identify the elderly with life satisfaction. The sample was drawn from elderly clubs in four provinces of the eastern border of Thailand. Data were collected using structured interviews regarding the elderly's daily living practices on physical, mental, social, and economic domains. A two-tailed dependent t test was used to reveal mean scores both overall and for each domain of the daily living practices of the elderly participants. It was found that the life satisfaction group of elderly had significantly higher scores than their dissatisfied counterparts. The findings suggest the importance of Thai elderly's good practice on food habits, regular exercise, seeking knowledge toward health, religious activity involvement, good relationships with others, and well-planned income and expenses resulting in life satisfaction. Thus, nurses can promote life satisfaction of Thai elderly by motivating these factors that are generally uncommon practices in the Thai elderly culture. Future studies using a longitudinal quasi-experimental design to employ these positive daily living practice to promote life satisfaction of the life dissatisfied elderly is recommended.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Nursing, Chualongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.
authors.forename: Pranom
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Othaganont
authors.forename: Chownpis
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sinthuvorakan
authors.forename: Pongsai
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Jensupakarn
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged / Q000523:psychology*; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D015438:Health Behavior; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008019:Life Style; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011788:Quality of Life; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires