Objective: To gain an in-depth understanding of the promotion of and barriers to proactive health behaviors among rural elderly with chronic diseases, and to provide a scientific basis for the later development of targeted intervention programs to enhance proactive health behaviors among rural elderly with chronic diseases. Methods: Adopting the descriptive qualitative research method in qualitative research, 16 rural elderly people with chronic diseases in a village in Henan Province were selected for semi-structured interviews, and the data were analyzed using the content analysis method. Results: Promoters and barriers to proactive health behaviors among rural elderly with chronic diseases were extracted; the two sub-themes of the promoter theme included good compliance behavior and intra-family support, and the four sub-themes of the barrier theme included insufficient knowledge of proactive health, weak awareness of proactive health, a single channel for acquiring knowledge of proactive health, and a higher financial burden on the family. Conclusion: The awareness of proactive health among the rural elderly with chronic diseases needs to be strengthened and the family support system needs to be further improved, which can be done by increasing the efforts of proactive health promotion and raising their awareness of active health, with a view to improving the active health behaviors of the rural elderly with chronic diseases.

Rural, Chronic Diseases, Proactive Health Behaviors