Women's health priorities in late life : perceived strategies for successful aging

The objectives of this thesis were (1) to identify older women's health priorities for promoting physical, psychological and social well-being; and (2) to measure the extent to which women perceive that their health priorities are being met. A qualitative methodology using 3 focus group sessions with 36 community-dwelling women aged 65 year and older was used to elicit older women's health priorities. Priorities were categorized into three groups: disease-related priorities, disability-related priorities, and psychosocial-related priorities. A questionnaire was developed to quantify the extent to which women perceive that these different priorities are being addressed. The survey was administered to a convenience sample of 609 community-based women aged 55--93 years (mean age 70 +/- 9 years) attending outpatient medical clinics. Unaddressed disability-related priorities were most prevalent. Women aged 75 years and older were significantly less likely to perceive that their priorities were unmet compared to younger mature women (OR 0.564; 95% confidence interval: 0.387--0.821) when adjusting for other health and socio-demographic variables. The implications of these findings and opportunities for improving preventive health care for older women are discussed