Factors Affecting Dental Health Care Behaviors Among Members in the Elderly Club at Sirindhorn Hospital, Medical Service Department, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration

Abstract

The objectives of this survey research were: (1) to identify dental health care behaviors of elderly club’s members; (2) to identify personal factors, predisposing factors, enabling factors as well as reinforcing factors affecting dental health care behaviors of elderly club’s members at Sirindhorn Hospital under the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. The study involved 150 participants randomly selected from 865 members of the elderly club of the hospital who had joined the healthcare activities of elderly club at least once in 2019. Data were collected using a questionnaire with the reliability value of 0.637–0.933 , and then analyzed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and multiple stepwise regression analysis.

          The results showed that, among all 150 participants: (1) their dental health care behaviors were at a high level; (2) most of them were female, aged 60–70 years, married and unemployed; had a bachelor’s degree or higher similar to elementary education, and most of them had a monthly income less than 5,000 baht; their predisposing factors (about health perception) were at a high level, while enabling (about dental equipment and service accessibility) and reinforcing (about supporting from people and elderly club) factors were at a moderate level; (3) personal factors such as income as well as predisposing, enabling and reinforcing factors were significantly associated with dental health care behaviors (p-value = 0.05); and (4) predictive factors of dental health care behaviors were, in descending influence order, getting dental health information from the elderly club, perceived benefits of dental health care, and access to dental care equipment; and could overall explained 26.7% of such behaviors at P = 0.01.