Salutogenic Healthy Aging Program Embracement (SHAPE) for Elderly-only Households

Summary

Elderly residing in elderly-only households are more vulnerable as they are socially isolated, suffer from poorer health outcomes, and are less likely to adopt health-promoting behaviors. While multi-dimensional preventive home visits provide older adults with the individualized care to cope with living in their homes, group-based education promotes peer learning and allows for social interaction. Elderly residing in elderly-only households can reap the benefits derived from the coaction of preventive home visits and group-based education, providing them with the personalized care to age healthily in their homes and a platform to develop social connectedness with their peers. This study uses the combination of preventive home visit and group-based education program to promote healthy aging in elderly living in elderly-only households.

Using a randomized controlled trial, the study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a 12-week health promotion and risk prevention program, named Salutogenic Healthy Aging Program Embracement (SHAPE) for elderly-only households. Participants in the experimental group will receive 2 home visits, 10-weekly group-based activity sessions and a SHAPE health-promotion booklet. A process evaluation using face-to-face interviews will also be conducted for elderly receiving SHAPE to explore their views on the program.

The use of salutogenic model breaks away from the negatively connoted conventional biomedical model and addresses on optimization of positive health. Ultimately, the SHAPE intervention seeks to identify, equip and strengthen resources for elderly-only households, encouraging the adaption of health-promoting and risk-preventing actions to achieve better health outcomes and higher quality of life.

Conditions

• Elderly

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

SHAPE Intervention

SHAPE seeks to identify, equip and strengthen resources in elderly residing in elderly-only households. The content will be further developed according to the findings of an existing descriptive qualitative study, literature review and a multi-disciplinary expert panel review. The home visit will involve assessment, observation and evaluation of elderly' health status, lifestyle and home environment, followed by guidance on health-promoting behaviour and emphasis on strengthening inner health resources. This provides an individualized approach to enhance personal health skills. Group-based activity sessions are directed to facilitate group interaction among peers as well as equipping and enhancing external resources.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Boon Lay Constituency

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Ministry of Education, Singapore

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• National University of Singapore

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Wenru Wang · National University of Singapore

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-08-01

Primary Completion

2020-07-31

Completion

2020-07-31