일 지역 경로당 이용 노인에게 적용한 낙상예방프로그램의 효과

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a fall prevention program for the elderly in senior citizen centers of local communities on knowledge of fall, self-efficiency and fear of fall and preventive activity. A nonequivalent control group with pre and posttests was used. Research data was collected for two months from November to December 2011 and the forty senior elderly were assigned to the experimental group and 39 senior elderly to the control group who were 65 years old and over, using two senior citizen centers in Jeju city and agreed to participate in this study. The fall prevention program was used with the experimental group once per week (fifty minutes) for four weeks. Then, participants were individually contacted by phone three days after the program every week to learn the program repeatedly, to recognize the importance and advantages of physical activities of the elderly and to improve their attitudes and motives in carrying out the fall prevention activity. Data were collected via individual subjects interviews. Interviews were completed at the senior citizen centers and required approximately 10～15 minutes. The data were analyzed by Chi-square test, Fisher exact test, t-test, paired t-test and unpaired t-test with using the SPSS 12.0 program.

The results were as follows :   1) After the fall prevention program, experimental group's knowledge score of fall increased by 6.03±3.38 points, but control group's score reduced by -0.23±0.92 points, so there was a significant difference between them(t=11.31, p= .000).

2) After the fall prevention program, experimental group's self-efficiency score related to a fall increased by 2.98±2.93 points, whereas control group's score decreased by -0.59±1.68 points, so there was a significant difference between them(t=6.65, p=.005).

3) After the fall prevention program, experimental group's fear score of a fall deceased by 26.65±7.15 points from 27.10±7.47 points(t=2.30, p=.027), and control group's score increased by 25.74±9.53 points from 24.87±10.11 points(t=-2.96, p=.005), but there was no significant difference(t=-3.76, p=.081).

4) After the fall prevention program, experimental group and control group's preventive activity scores of a fall increased by .98±2.86 points and 0.05±0.22 points, respectively, and there was a significant difference between them(t=8.65 p=.000).   These results prove that the fall prevention program consisting of education and exercise is effective for seniors in local communities and thus can be applied as an intervention program to prevent a fall. In conclusion, an individual or a collective education should be constantly conducted to ensure the sustainable effect of the fall prevention education, and voluntary participation and wills of participants have to be considered for motivating them. Moreover, further researches on the period of a cost-effective program would be needed to lead to a positive change in fear of fall effectively.