影響老年人身心健康之相關因素探討

With the aging population increases, elderly mental and physical health receives more attention. The purpose of this study was to explore the related factors affecting physical and mental health of older people. A cross-sectional correlation study design was carried out. Five hundred and sixteen subjects were recruited from community's elderly who were over 65 years old with convenience sampling. The instruments used in this study were the Chinese Health Questionnaire-12 (CHQ-12) and Taiwan Geriatric Depression Scale-30 (TGDS-30). The results are as follows: 39.7% of the subjects fell down in the past year. Most common comorbid diseases of subjects were hypertension (38.2%), arthritis (24.0%), and DM (23.6%). Female and elders had significant poorer CHQ-12 scores than male and younger people (p＜.01). The elderly suffered from DM, arthritis, hepatic-bililary disease and spondylosis had higher CHQ-12 scores (p＜.01). The elderly with more falling times and higher TGDS score had poorer CHQ-12 scores (p＜.01). Falling times and depression could explain 22% total variance of CHQ-12 scores. Results from this study reveal important implications to develop prevention interventions on chronic diseases and falling for female elders in order to enhance their physical and mental health.