Abstract

Researchers have identified discrete behaviors of older persons to maintain or improve health and prevent or treat illness. Few have developed theories of health behavior specific to this population. The purpose of this study was to develop a substantive theory to explain how health and illness are integrated into and influence behaviors in the daily lives of community-residing older persons. Using grounded theory design and analysis, 26 participant observations involving 186 individual encounters, and seven semistructured [sic] one-on-one interviews were conducted at two senior centers in urban southern California, between 1992 and 1994.

Informants defined health in terms of physiologic and social function. The core variable emerging from this study was Negotiating the Healthy Self, through which the aging person continually defined, enhanced, and protected personal identity in the face of potential and actual physiologic and social losses with aging. It included the balancing of two processes: Norming and Normalizing.

Norming was the process of developing a personal definition of the healthy self and maintaining activities to sustain it. Physiologic identity included personal appearance, and physical and mental activity. Social identity included social visibility, interaction, and role involvement. This norm was defined and adjusted based on past experiences, current health status, and social comparisons.

Normalizing was the process of enhancing and protecting the norm using the proactive strategy of Selective Health Promotion and the reactive strategy of Managing Threats to the Healthy Self. Each strategy might necessitate aggressive health seeking, denial, or resistance to change based on the perceived effect of an action on the personal norm. Possible consequences of Negotiating the Healthy Self were preserving or enhancing the normed healthy self, redefining it to accommodate changing conditions, or relinquishing it and losing something of the self.

Negotiating the Healthy Self provides a theoretical explanation for adherence and non-adherence to health promotion, disease prevention, and treatment activities by older adults. As a determinant of health-related behavior, it has implications for the provision of health education and health care to seniors. Recommendations include further research to validate and expand the theory with less healthy populations of seniors as well as younger adult populations.

School

School of Public Health

First Advisor

Barbara Frye

Second Advisor

Patrice D. Artress

Third Advisor

Helen P. Hopp

Degree Name

Doctor of Public Health (DrPH)

Degree Level

Ph.D.

Year Degree Awarded

1996

Date (Title Page)

6-1996

Language

English

Library of Congress/MESH Subject Headings

Health Behavior -- in old age; Health Promotion; Life Style -- in old age; Health Education -- in old age; Preventive Health Services; Preventive Medicine -- in old age

Type

Thesis

Page Count

xii; 188

Digital Format

PDF

Digital Publisher

Loma Linda University Libraries

Usage Rights

This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has granted Loma Linda University a limited, non-exclusive right to make this publication available to the public. The author retains all other copyrights.

Collection

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Collection Website

http://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/

Repository

Loma Linda University. Del E. Webb Memorial Library. University Archives

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