Abstract

Association of Perception of Aging of Senior Citizen to Level of Awareness

Carlo Bryan C Borrico and Esperanza Anita Arias

Background: This study aimed to determine the association of aging perception of senior citizen to level of awareness on their rights, benefits and privileges and living arrangements. Methods: Four hundred (400) senior citizen residents in Barangay Dau were recruited and participated in the study. Frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation were used for descriptive while Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis H test were used to determine which among socio-economic variables varies with aging perception. Spearman's rank-order correlation on the other hand was used to determine the relationship between the aging perception and their awareness on their rights, benefits and privileges. Results: The result revealed that most participants have positive control over aging and think that aging have positive impact to their lives. They have less negative emotion toward aging and most of them accepted that they are growing old. Moreover, it was found out that among the socioeconomic factors identified, only gender and living arrangement had variation on aging perception. There is a positive correlation between senior citizen awareness of their rights, benefits and privileges and their belief that aging have positive impact on their life. In addition, there is an inverse relationship between age and Control-Negative indicating that as person grow older, they are more likely perceived that they have positive control over aging.