Health Care Behaviors and Barriers of Health Care Behaviors among Elderly Population in a Selected Urban Community of Uttar Pradesh

Background: The Population is ageing in India. Health care and different wants related to ageing are also rising. Therefore, understanding the health care behavior and the factors influencing the health - seeking behaviors of the elderly is extremely essential to deal with and strengthen geriatric health - care services as per the requirements and mitigate the prevailing lacunae. Materials and Methods: In this community - based cross - sectional study, a total of 500 elderly population aged 60 years and above were selected from an urban community of Uttar Pradesh by Stratified Proportionate sampling. Data was collected by interview technique. A questionnaire on Health Care Behaviors and a 3 point Likert scale on Barriers of Health Care Behavior were used to collect the data. Collected data was computed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Majority 63.8% had satisfactory health care behaviours, followed by 32% with good and only 4.2% were found to have poor health care behaviours. The most common barriers expressed were don?t want to be a burden (35%), dependent on family (28.2%), financially dependent on family (43%), long queue in hospitals (37.6%) and lack of time for oneself (21.8%). Certain socio - demographic variables like Age, Gender, Social class and Education was significantly associated with the health care behaviors at 0.05 level of significance. Conclusion: Primary health care services for the elderly needs to be strengthened. Community Nurse has a great role in imparting preventive geriatric health care services.