[The comparison of health behaviors between widowed women and married women in Jeollanamdo Province, Korea].
OBJECTIVE
To compare the health behaviors of widowed women with those of currently married women.


METHODS
We randomly sampled the subjects from the Jeollanamdo Resident Registration Data and we then selected 2,331 widowed women and 4,775 married women. Well-trained examiners measured the height, weight, blood pressure and abdomen circumference, and the women were interviewed with using a questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the odds ratios(OR) of the two groups.


RESULTS
The smoking rate (OR=2.46; 95% confidence interval [CI]1.65, 3.66) was significantly higher for the widowed women. On the contrary, the awareness rate of a smoking cessation campaign (OR=0.80; 95% CI=0.70, 0.92), a quit tobacco telephone line (OR=0.73; 95% CI=0.61, 0.88) and a quit smoking clinic (OR=0.74; 95% CI=0.62, 0.89) were lower for the widowed women. The rate of receiving a health exam (OR=0.80; 95% CI=0.70, 0.91), the rate of undergoing gastric cancer screening (OR=0.77; 95% CI=0.68, 0.88), breast cancer screening (OR=0.79; 95% CI=0.69, 0.89), cervix cancer screening in the last 2 years (OR=0.81; 95% CI=0.71, 0.92), colon cancer screening in the last 5 years (OR=0.74; 95% CI=0.63, 0.87) were significantly lower for the widowed women.


CONCLUSIONS
This study revealed that the health behaviors are significantly different between the widowed women and the married women. To improve the health behaviors of the widowed women, further study and research that will investigate the socioeconomic and environmental factors that affect the health behaviors of widowed women will be needed.
Choi
Seong-Woo
SW
Department of Preventive Medicine, Chonnam National University Medical School.
Rhee
Jung Ae
JA
Shin
Jun-Ho
JH
Shin
Min-Ho
MH
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001794:Blood Pressure; D001837:Body Weights and Measures; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D011314:Preventive Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D018454:Spouses / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017805:Widowhood / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*