FACTORS EFFECTING FOOD OFFERING TO MONKS BEHAVIOR OF THE ELDERLY LIVING IN SISAKET PROVINCE

Abstract

        The objectives of this research was the cross - sectional descriptive study and was designed to study the factors affecting the food offering to monks behavior of the elderly living in Sisaket province. The sample was 400 elderlies who were 60 years old or above, with an average of 69.5 ± 7.2 years old. They were selected by using simple random and accidental samplings. The developed questionnaires were used for this research. The questionnaires were checked for content validity analysis by the experts and the Index of Item - Objective Congruence (IOC) value was 0.72. Moreover, these questionnaires were tested for reliability analysis by using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and the alpha coefficient was 0.76. Data analysis was accomplished by using the percentage, mean, standard deviation, factor analysis and multiple regressions analysis. The result found that beliefs, attitude and knowledge were the factors affecting food offering to monk behavior of elderly. the three factors were the positive factors affecting food offering to monk behavior of elderly at a significance level of .05 (p - value = .000, .000, .002 respectively). These factors can forecast the variance of food offering to monk behavior at 22.1%. For suggestions, the elderly living in Sisaket province should be promoted about knowledge of chronic disease from food consumption and knowledge of nutrition for selecting healthy food to monks’ health.