Grounded Theory Approach to Health Care of Older Adults at a Doctorless Farm Village

Han, Young Ran; Kim, Young Hee

Abstract

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to explore how older adults kept their health good at a doctorless farm village. METHOD: Data was collected through in-depth interviews with 32 participants who were over 65 years old and analyzed in terms of Strauss and Corbin`s (1990) grounded theory methodology. RESULT: The Core Category of health care of older adults was identified as "enduring physical changes by themselves". The process of this could be divided into 4 stages : the stage of bearing, the stage of managing daily living activities, the stage of passively collecting information and the stage of minimally utilizing health care services. Older adults accepted the aging process positively but health sources limitation passively, so they managed daily living activities and used natural food for health. In addition, they collected information related to health care and used health care services minimally. CONCLUSION: We found that participants managed their health passively because of negative attitudes toward active health behaviors of older adults by themselves and the difficulty of access to health care services. Therefore, various community health services for older adults need to be developed to empower older adults in the community.