Abstract
Participation in leisure activities has a positive effect on the well-being of older people during their later years. Based on the theory of continuity, most older people will keep their previous hobbies and
participating in leisure activities they have been participating since their young and mid-age years. The purpose of this study is to understand the participation in leisure activities and how age and health status changes might have an impact on the participation in leisure activities among the elders in Taiwan.
In this study, data were taken from a 14-year longitudinal data from the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan, collected by the Bureau of Health Promotion, Department of Health A total of 1,428 people were included for the current study. The statistical software package, SPSS 12.0, was used for descriptive statistics, chi-square test and logistic regression analysis.
The important results of this study include:
(1) Participation of older persons in the most common leisure activities were watching television, take a walk, and chat with friends and neighbors.
(2) As people got older, their participation in leisure activities showed a downward trend.
(3) As people got older, they continued to engaging in leisure activities. The most strong predictor of participation in any type of leisure activities was their participation in the same activity 7 years ago, which is consistent with the continuity theory.
(4)In terms of changes in health status, the most important factor was the elders’ functional limitations. An increase in functional limitations would prevented the elders from participation leisure activities.
