Health Promotion Behavior, Health Problems, Perceived Health Status and Farmers' Syndrome of Rural Residents

Park, Jeong Sook; Kwon, Sang Min; Oh, Yun Jung

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this study was to identify the health promotion behavior, health problem, perceived health status and farmers' syndrome of rural residents.
METHODS
The subjects of this study were 637 adults of 19 primary health care post extracted from 1.875 primary health care post in Korea by quota sampling method. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation.
RESULTS
The average score of health promotion behavior was 2.23. In the sub-scales, the highest degree of performance was 'nutrition', followed by 'spiritual growth' and the lowest degree of performance was 'physical activity'. The most prevalent health problem was ailments in 'musculoskeletal system', followed by 'fatigue', 'eyes and ears', 'cardiovascular system'. The mean score of perceived health status was 8.54. The prevalence of farmers' syndrome was 98.4%. Health promotion behavior showed a significant positive correlation health status and perceived health status showed a significant negative farmers' syndrome.
CONCLUSIONS
With the above findings, rural residents' physical activity is less than urban residents', and the rural resident's score of perceived health status, musculoskeletal system and fatigue are lower than urban residents'. The farmers' syndrome of the rural people is high. A tailored health promotion program for rural community is needed to develop in the consideration of these findings.