Comparison of awareness, beliefs, and attitudes of elderly age groups in utilization of physical therapy services for preventive healthcare / [author]: Cortez, Princess Jhaylene T., Cruz, John Daryl S., Dela Cruz, Denise Nicole V., Dela Cruz, Vilther Dominic A. Grande, Chrisea Honeylin B., Tabtab, Ma. Francesca Ysabela G. [co-author]: Patrick Joseph M. Bonnevie

Includes Appendix

ABSTRACT:
Background: Having an increasing population of the elderly means that there is a significant change in the healthcare demographics due to increased risk factors which leads to their vulnerability to adverse health consequences. PT, on the other
hand, is a profession which includes not only treatment for conditions but also prevention in acquiring these. However, most of the elderly population is not aware that risk prevention is also a scope of PT.
Objective: This study aimed to compare the awareness, beliefs, and attitudes of the different elderly age groups, the youngest-old, middle-old, and oldestold ,towards utilizing PT for prevention of conditions.
Method: A survey-questionnaire was given to residents of Brgy. Graceville and Brgy. Fairview which determined their awareness, beliefs, and attitudes towards PT. 204 participants participated, with 104 participants included in youngest-old
age group, 85 participants in the middle-old age group, and 12 participants in the oldest-old age group. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics for the subjects’ characteristics and inferential statistics, specifically Kruskal-Wallis, to determine differences between the awareness, beliefs, and attitudes of each age group towards utilization of PT in preventive healthcare.
Results: Through data analysis, some items under awareness, beliefs, and attitudes were found to be statistically different in each age group. For the items about awareness, only question 3, I think I should know more about PT, showed a statistically significant difference (p= .002). Meanwhile, for the items under the beliefs, the questions, I believe that I can seek PT services even without any disease or condition (p= .026) and question 3, I believe that having PT services improves my overall health (p= .002) showed statistically significant difference. Lastly, for the items under Attitudes, the questions 2 and 3, 1 will seek PT Services even without a medical condition and I will promote PT services to my relatives and friends, with p-value p= .021 and p= .022 respectively. Conclusion: It was seen that most of the elderly population, especially the youngold and middle-old age groups, are aware of PT services, believe that PT is needed to improve their overall health, but have a neutral attitude towards utilizing PT even if they do not have conditions. Several factors such as financial constraints and lack of knowledge affect their awareness, beliefs, and attitudes towards utilization of PT in preventive healthcare.

School of Physical Therapy Thesis - School of Physical Therapy