Exploring associations between older adults’ demographic characteristics and their perceptions of self-care actions for communicating with healthcare professionals in southern United States

Aims: This study examined associations between older adults’ demographic factors and their perceived importance of, desire to and ability to perform seven self-care behaviours for communicating with healthcare professionals. Design: This cross-sectional survey study analysed subset data of 123 older adults 65 years and older, living in southern United States. Methods: The Patient Action Inventory for Self-Care (57 items, grouped into 11 categories) was used to collect self-reported self-care data. Demographic characteristics were also collected. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analyses were used to tests for relationships between the variables relevant to the research objective. Results: Regression findings showed that separated older adults felt less able to share ideas about their healthcare experiences compared to married older adults. Male older adults reported less desire to list issues to discuss and less desire to share ideas about their care experience with their healthcare professionals compared to their female counterparts.