The proposed project will provide a national sample database on the self-care behaviors practiced by elderly persons in the United States not living in long-term care facilities. The proposed database will be useful to a number of health and health-related professions and service organizations whose efforts are directed toward assisting the elderly to continue to live in non- institutional settings for the maximum possible time through cost- effective health promotion and disease prevention interventions. The project will employ a carefully developed survey instrument which has been field tested for this purpose as part of a previous project funded by the Division of Nursing of the Bureau of Health Professions, Health Resources and Services Administration. In the present project, the survey instrument will be further examined with respect to its validity and reliability and then used in a national sample survey of all individuals age 65 and beyond who are not residents of nursing homes or domiciliary care facilities. With these data, the project will establish normative standards of selfcare activity performance levels among the study population within several broad dimensions. The project will measure the extent and type of respondents' self-care behavior in performing instrumental activities of daily living (ADL) and more basic activities of daily living (ADL). Specific enduring and recurrent health problems (e.g., chronic conditions and psychosocial/behavioral conditions) for which the respondents perform special self-care activities, use special equipment, or receive care from others will be measured. The identification of subjects' patterns of medical self-care when diagnosing commonly occurring acute conditions, treating such conditions, and seeking health informnation will be assessed. And the project will specify the health practices engaged in by respondents which are intended to enhance one's general level of health, reduce established health risk factors, or prevent the occurrence of disease.
