J Prev Med Public Health.  2008 Jul;41(4):272-278. 10.3961/jpmph.2008.41.4.272.

The Comparison of Health Behaviors Between Widowed Women and Married Women in Jeollanamdo Province, Korea

• Choi SW
• Rhee JA
• Shin JH
• Shin MH

• KMID: 792568
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3961/jpmph.2008.41.4.272

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To compare the health behaviors of widowed women with those of currently married women. METHODS: We randomly sampled the subjects from the Jeollanamdo Resident Registration Data and we then selected 2,331 widowed women and 4,775 married women. Well-trained examiners measured the height, weight, blood pressure and abdomen circumference, and the women were interviewed with using a questionnaire. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the odds ratios(OR) of the two groups. RESULTS: The smoking rate (OR=2.46; 95% confidence interval [CI]1.65, 3.66) was significantly higher for the widowed women. On the contrary, the awareness rate of a smoking cessation campaign (OR=0.80; 95% CI=0.70, 0.92), a quit tobacco telephone line (OR=0.73; 95% CI=0.61, 0.88) and a quit smoking clinic (OR=0.74; 95% CI=0.62, 0.89) were lower for the widowed women. The rate of receiving a health exam (OR=0.80; 95% CI=0.70, 0.91), the rate of undergoing gastric cancer screening (OR=0.77; 95% CI=0.68, 0.88), breast cancer screening (OR=0.79; 95% CI=0.69, 0.89), cervix cancer screening in the last 2 years (OR=0.81; 95% CI=0.71, 0.92), colon cancer screening in the last 5 years (OR=0.74; 95% CI=0.63, 0.87) were significantly lower for the widowed women. CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed that the health behaviors are significantly different between the widowed women and the married women. To improve the health behaviors of the widowed women, further study and research that will investigate the socioeconomic and environmental factors that affect the health behaviors of widowed women will be needed.

Keyword

Health behavior; Bereavement; Widowhood; Currently married

MeSH Terms

Adult
Aged
Blood Pressure
Body Weights and Measures
Female
*Health Behavior
Humans
Korea/epidemiology
Middle Aged
Preventive Health Services/utilization
Smoking/epidemiology
Smoking Cessation/statistics & numerical data
Socioeconomic Factors
Spouses/*statistics & numerical data
Widowhood/*statistics & numerical data