Senior citizens experience of barriers to information about healthy behaviour

The study examined barriers to information about healthy behaviour, experienced by senior citizens aged 60 years and older. The data was gathered by a questionnaire survey in 2012. Total number of participants was 176. Participants were presented with 13 statements which measure perceived information barriers, a 5-point response scale (1 = Strongly disagree – 5 = Strongly agree) was used. To assess how information barriers relate to age, the participants were divided into two groups, people aged 60 to 67 years and 68 years and older. ANOVA (one-way) was performed to examine difference across the age groups. To examine the effects of sex and education, and how it interacts on the age groups experience of information barriers, factorial analysis of variance (FANOVA) was used. The results suggest that senior citizens are faced with barriers to information that can have impact on their possibilities to promote their knowledge of healthy behaviour. Of the 13 statements, 10 were found to represent information barriers. Sex was found to interact with age for two statements. Education interacted with age for seven statements, with participants with primary education experiencing lower barriers than participants with secondary or university education. Possible explanation to this finding is discussed in the paper.