臺北市高齡者自覺健康狀況相關因素之探討

Abstract

我國於2018年正式邁入高齡社會，預計於2026年進入超高齡社會。隨著生育率降低，高齡人口持續增加，經濟勞動人口銳減，導致扶養比提高、勞動力不足，稅收減少的同時卻仍須支出大筆預算，提供高齡人口之醫療照護需求。因此，面對高齡社會，許多國內學者亦積極投入各項有關高齡者身體活動行為及健康相關議題之研究。本研究以臺北市十二行政區域內65歲以上之高齡者為研究對象，以分層隨機抽樣進行電話調查訪問，期許透過代表性都會型城市研究成果，鼓勵高齡者提升進行身體活動行為之意願，讓高齡者能夠擁有健康的身體來延續生命。 研究發現83.1%的臺北市高齡者自覺健康狀況為好，而有65.6%的高齡者每週身體活動時間有超過150分鐘，顯示有過半的臺北市高齡者已養成規律運動的習慣。而教育程度、身體活動量、喝酒及小睡行為皆與自覺健康狀況達顯著相關，研究發現教育程度越高、從事身體活動時間越長之高齡者，自覺健康狀況較好，而有喝酒行為、小睡越多者，自覺健康狀況不好，與過去研究相同，因此過去之研究也適用於探討臺北市高齡者自覺健康狀況相關情形，同樣可供未來政府在進行衛教政策時擬定參考，也可讓後續進行相關研究的學者列為參考依據；而臺北市高齡者可參考本研究結果，提高身體活動量、避免不良行為，藉此維持身體健康。Taiwan has been an aging society in 2018 officially, and will be expected to be an aged society in 2026. By the decline of fertility rate, the growing of senior population, and the sharp reduction of labor force participation rate lead to the affections of the raise of dependency ratio, lack of labor force and the decrease of the taxation. Meanwhile, the government still has a large of budget expenditure on providing demands of medical care for the older people, which also cause financial burden of our country. Therefore, lots of scholars actively ramped up research about physical activity and health status of older adults. This research took older adults living in twelve administrative districts in Taipei city as research object, and using telephone interview with stratified random sampling as research method. Hopefully, through this research, the government and authorities can encourage the older adults to increase their willingness of participating in physical activity to extend their lives. According to the research, 83.1% of older adults in Taipei believe they’re in good health condition and 65.2% have engaged in physical activity for over 150 minutes per week, which indicates over fifty percent of older adults in Taipei has developed habit of regular exercise. Educational background, amount of physical activity, drinking and nap-taking behavior are significantly related to perceived health status. According to this research, older adults with higher education background and longer time of engaging in physical activity believe they’re in good health condition; on the contrary, older adults have drinking habit and nap-taking behavior believe they’re in bad health condition, which is the same as other researches in the past; hence the researches in the past also can be used to discuss older adults’ in Taipei perceived health status, to be a consultation or reference when the government is formulating health education policy in the future, so didthe scholars. Older adults in Taipei can take this research result as reference to increase physical activity and stay healthy. Different from other researches, in this research, smoking behavior was not significant related to health status, which respondents probably conceal the truth in the phone interview. In view of this, researchers in the future can conduct some questions about smoking as frequency question so that the respondents may tell the truth and get the more correct and proper answers.Hope to see the older adults in Taipei can take this research into consideration to delay aging, improve quality of life and increase the amount of physical activity.