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. 2025 Dec 15;26(1):57.
doi: 10.1186/s12877-025-06880-y.

University students' perspectives on delivering health education interventions to underprivileged older adults in the community: a qualitative study of a large-scale community-based research project

Siu Long Chau  1 , Wanjia He  1 , Sophia Siu Chee Chan  2
Affiliations

University students' perspectives on delivering health education interventions to underprivileged older adults in the community: a qualitative study of a large-scale community-based research project

Siu Long Chau et al. BMC Geriatr. .

Abstract

Background: The number of underprivileged older adults (≥ 65 years) has been increasing in the context of population ageing. In light of the global primary healthcare reform and development, healthcare professional students would require knowledge and skills to work with community older adults in addition to clinical skills. We established a large-scale community-based research project (Generations Connect) to train healthcare professional students to provide health assessments and interventions to older adults at their homes. This study explores students' perspectives on providing community interventions to older adults in Hong Kong.

Methods: A qualitative study was conducted on 20 Hong Kong healthcare university students recruited using purposive sampling. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted from May to September 2024. Interview questions focused on their experience and barriers to communicating with older adults during the home visit. Each interview lasted around an hour. All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Two researchers independently analyzed the transcripts using thematic analysis with an additional investigator to verify the consistency of the coding.

Results: Four themes emerged from the analysis: (1) perceived barriers to delivering health education due to functional limitations of the older adults, (2) attitudes of older adults towards receiving health education, (3) perceived factors that moderate older adults' health literacy, and (4) strategies to enhance health literacy and effectiveness of health education in older adults.

Conclusions: Older adult's functional limitations and negative generalization of ageing may have prevented them from actively seeking health information and health-promoting behaviors. To enhance the intervention's effectiveness, the health education contents should be customized based on their health needs, functional capabilities, and readiness to change health behaviors.

Keywords: Community settings; Health education; Home visits; Underprivileged older adults.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: All study participants gave verbal and written informed consent before the interview began. This qualitative study was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the University of Hong Kong/Hospital Authority Hong Kong West Cluster (IRB/REC Reference No.: UW 22–693). Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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