[The use of professional health care systems among the elderly in rural communities].
OBJECTIVE
This ethnography is aimed at describing the health care seeking behavior of elderly details in their socio-cultural context. The research question is "under what conditions did elderly informants decide to use certain professional health care services and how do they make use of all the available resources?"


METHODS
10 sessions of fieldwork were conducted in the two agricultural villages between Sep. 1999 and Oct. 2002. The data for this paper came from participant observation with 14 informants. In the process of analysis I used proxemic and taxonomic techniques.


RESULTS
Informants decided to use a certain health care system according to their folk definition of illness. They prefer to use the health services where they felt more comfortable and free. They wished to be care from intuitive and holistic healers. Social network and having health resources was also important factor.


CONCLUSIONS
We need more comprehensive research model to reach a plausible explanation. Combined qualitative-quantitative research is needed to get practical data to develop effective health care systems for the elderly.
Department of Nursing, Dongeui University, Research Institute of Natural Science in Dongeui University, Korea. mocho@deui.ac.kr
Myoung-Ok
MO
Cho