How primary care providers promote active aging in community-dwelling older people with mental disorders: A qualitative study

The promotion of active aging in community-dwelling older people with mental disorders is an under-researched area. Primary care providers play an important role in engaging older people with mental health disorders to optimize active aging and increase their quality of life. This study explored how primary care providers apply the concept of active aging in community-dwelling older people with mental disorders and to identify factors that facilitate or hinder such application for promoting active aging in this group. Two focus groups were conducted. Fourteen primary care providers were recruited by purposive sampling from two primary care units located in Ubonratchathani province, the northeast region of Thailand. Content analysis was used to analyse the data. The study found that the majority of primary care providers were unfamiliar with the notion of active aging and that older people with mental disorders were not encouraged to join the health promotion activities organised by the community centre. Thai primary care providers need to be supported with training to enhance skills for promoting active ageing in this group. They also lack resources from the national and local government. The findings of this study were used to help develop a new instrument to measure perspectives of primary care providers in a quantitative study.