Scoping review of health promotion and disease prevention interventions addressed to elderly people

Abstract

BackgroundThe ageing of modern societies remains one of the greatest challenges for health and social systems. To respond to this challenge, we need effective strategies assuring healthy active life for elderly people. Health promotion and related activities are perceived as a key intervention, which can improve wellbeing in later life. The main aim of this study is the identification and classification of such interventions addressed to older adults and elderly. Therefore, the strategy based on the scoping review as a feasible tool for exploring this domain, summarizing research findings and identifying gaps of evidence, was applied.MethodsThe scoping review relies on the analysis of previous reviews of interventions aimed at older adults (55–64 years old) and elderly persons (65 years and above) assessed for their effectiveness in the framework of a systematic review and/or meta-analysis. The search strategy was based on the identification of interventions reported as health promotion, primary disease prevention, screening or social support. In the analysis, the reviews published from January 2000 to April 2015 were included.ResultsThe search strategy yielded 334 systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses addressed to target groups of interest, 182 of them assessed interventions belonging to health promotion, 219 to primary prevention, 34 to screening and 35 to social support. The studies focused on elderly (65 years and above) made up 40.4 % of all retrieved reviews and those addressing population of 55 years and above accounted for 24.0 %.ConclusionsInterventions focused on health maintenance and improvement in elderly and older adults represent frequently combined health promotion and disease prevention actions. Many interventions of this type are not addressed exclusively to elderly populations and/or older adults but are designed for the general population. The most common types of interventions addressed to elderly and older adults in the area of health promotion include health education, behavior modification and health communication.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1521-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Interventions for the Elderly: A Scoping Review from 2015–2019

“…The present study was based on scoping review methodologies designed in the last five years (2015-2019), with the purpose of identifying and reviewing the effectiveness of different interventions addressing elderly health promotion and related areas. This study is a continuation of the research of Duplaga et al [4]. The concept of the scoping review in the present study follows that of previous scoping review studies, such as Arksey and O'Malley [6], and further discussion by Levac, Colquhoun, and O'Brien et al [6].…”

“…The classification for the interventions methods followed Duplaga et al [4] and was divided into four categories: health promotion (HP), primary prevention (PP), screening (SC), and social support (SS).…”

“…The search strategy for this study followed the PCC context and the concept of health promotion based on a previous study conducted by Duplaga et al (2016) [7] using a combination of keywords shown in Table 1. The search strategy included six search databases: PubMed, CINAHL, the CochraneLibrary, EMBASE, PubPsych, and ERIC (EBSCOhost), and the included reviews were published in English from January 2015 to October 2019.…”

“…Due to the wide range of entry points for that study of health promotion in the elderly, Duplaga et al, published a study on the promotion of health in the elderly in 2016 [4], which systematically summarized and reviewed research published on this topic from January 2000 to April 2015 and used a scoping review to systematically collate reviews. Although both scoping reviews and literature reviews contain reviews of empirical literature, their purposes and focuses of discussion are different.…”

Minor positive effects of health-promoting senior meetings for older community-dwelling persons on loneliness, social network, and social support

“…For example, a recently published scoping review only found nine studies combining health promotion and social support, several among them addressing a general population or persons aged <65 years. 29 Consequently, it is clear that loneliness, social network, and social support are important aspects to target in health-promoting interventions for older persons, and to evaluate such initiatives. Accordingly, seeking to support advancement of knowledge on this subject, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the 1-year effect of the health-promoting intervention senior meetings for older community-dwelling persons on loneliness, social network, and social support.…”