RESULTS
Demographic characteristics
It was found that 66.4% of the elderly were
female and half of them (50.4%) were in the age 60
69 years old. More than half (62.5%) were married,
54% lived with their spouse, son and daughter,
83.3% completed primary school level, and 62.5% had their own occupation. Twothirds of them (67.7%) had income equal or less than 1,000 baht/month where 74.8% had a source of income from a son or daughter. Concerning adequacy of income, 37% had enough but not for saving, while
31.7% had inadequate income and had to borrow from others. Threefourths of them (75.4%) had a high level of knowledge on health promoting behaviors. Nearly half (46%) perceived that they
had some chronic illness of which the highest
ranked were hypertension (37.4%) followed by peptic ulcer (25.2%) and diabetes mellitus (19.4%),and 68.6% perceived present illness as muscular or joint pain and body pain. Seventy percent of elderlyutilized a community hospital most when they had become sick and among which 100% used the gold card and perceived that it was convenient to travel to health facilities by vehicles. Nearly half (45.8%
and 45.8%) perceived that benefits of the gold card and social support were at a low level