Health promoting lifestyles and influencing factors among empty nesters and non-empty nesters in Taiyuan, China: a cross-sectional study

Background: In China, the problems of population aging and empty nesting have become important issues which will affect the social stability and economic development. The aim of this study was to explore the health promoting lifestyles and influencing factors among empty nesters and compare with non-empty nesters to find out their differences, so as to provide a scientific evidence for people to formulate health management strategies for elderly. Methods: A cross-sectional survey which used a stratified random cluster sampling method, was conducted among 500 elders in six districts of Taiyuan, China, there were 288 empty nesters and 212 non-empty nesters. The general information and health-promoting lifestyles were investigated by using the self-made General Information Questionnaire and Health Promoting Lifestyle Scale(HPLP). Two-sample t-test and Chi-square test were used to compare the sociodemographic factors, HPLP scores of empty nesters to non-empty nesters; Multiple stepwise linear regression was performed to estimate influencing factors related to the HPLP of empty nesters and non-empty nesters. Results: The current findings showed that there were differences between the empty nesters and non-empty nesters in gender, resident, marital status, education and income, self-care ability, source of income, relationship with spouse and social activities (P < 0.05). Empty nesters were mostly male, married, had a higher education level, self-care ability and income and lived in urban compared with non-empty nesters. The health promoting lifestyles of the elderly in this survey were in the medium level, the highest score for all dimensions in both groups was in nutrition, whereas health responsibility was executed worst. The HPLP and six subscales scores of the empty nesters were higher than non-empty nesters, there were significant differences in total score of HPLP, self-realization and health responsibility (P < 0.01). Multiple regression analysis showed that the main predictive factors for the empty nesters were education, self-care ability and resident, whereas the main predictive factors for the non-empty nesters were parents-child relationship, source of income and age; social activity was the common factor for two group. Conclusion: The health promoting lifestyles of the empty nesters was better than that of the non- empty nesters. Health responsibility, interpersonal relations and stress management were key dimensions to be improved. Except social activity, education, self-care ability and resident were the unique influencing factors of health-promoting lifestyles for empty nesters, while the parents-child relationship, income and age were unique factors for non-empty nesters. The main target of Intervention strategy for elderly health promoting lifestyles should be the enhance of health responsibility, interpersonal relations and stress management by improving social activities, parent-child relationship, education and income of elderly.