The adult U.S. population aged 65 years and older increased to 35 million in 2000 and is projected to more than double by 2030. Older women outnumber older men and are more likely than older men to live alone, suffer from chronic illness, spend more years and a greater percentage of their lifetime disabled, and live in poverty. As a woman ages, her health needs become more complex, and recognition of and access to personal resources and social contextual resources as a basis for purposeful participation in the attainment of health goals is essential. Our knowledge concerning the potential role for health promotion efforts to manage chronic illness and to promote well-being in older women, particularly those who are homebound remains relatively limited. Further, there is a paucity of intervention studies promoting an awareness of and access to needed health resources in older women. Personal resources and social contextual resources appear to play an important role in promoting well-being in older women suffering from chronic illness. However, the needs of many women are not being met because women do not possess skills essential to identify and obtain key resources. The theory-based Health Empowerment Intervention (HEI) is designed to build self-capacity, social networks, and social service utilization in order to obtain needed resources and promote purposeful participation in the attainment of health goals. The purpose of the proposed research is to pilot test the HEI with the intent of optimizing the intervention protocol, and explores the impact of the HEI on the health outcome of well-being and theoretical mediators of health empowerment and goal attainment. The research design is a 2 (intervention and attention comparison) X 3 (baseline-Time 1, 6 weeks-Time 2, and 12 weeks-Time 3) randomized controlled trial. Fifty homebound older women will be randomly assigned to either the intervention group or attention comparison group. The intervention group will receive the 6 week in home HEI while the attention comparison group will receive a newsletter once a week for 6 weeks focusing on health and safety issues related to older women. A repeated measures analysis of variance will be used to explore the impact of the intervention on the theoretical mediating variables. Ultimately the HEI may reduce health care costs by keeping homebound older women in their homes, thus preventing or delaying the need for institutionalization. ? ? ?
| Shearer, Nelma B C; Fleury, Julie; Ward, Kathy A et al. (2012) Empowerment interventions for older adults. West J Nurs Res 34:24-51 |
| Crawford Shearer, Nelma B; Fleury, Julie D; Belyea, Michael (2010) Randomized control trial of the Health Empowerment Intervention: feasibility and impact. Nurs Res 59:203-11 |
| Crawford Shearer, Nelma B; Fleury, Julie D; Belyea, Michael (2010) An innovative approach to recruiting homebound older adults. Res Gerontol Nurs 3:11-8 |
| Shearer, Nelma B Crawford (2009) Health empowerment theory as a guide for practice. Geriatr Nurs 30:4-10 |
