Abstract
BACKGROUND: The Chinese government has invested significant resources to build many rural healthcare stations. However, in the face of convenient medical paths and accessible medical resources, the utilization rate of health services for older adults in rural areas is surprisingly low. This study explored why health-seeking behavior among older adults in rural China was not active. METHODS: Data were collected through participatory rural appraisal (PRA) with 108 participants in 12 villages in southern China. Daily schedule and social and resource mapping were employed to outline the range of activities and the routine of the older adults, as well as in-depth interviews to understand the logic of their healthcare choices. Data collected were analyzed by content analysis. RESULTS: Three themes were generated: (1) perceptions of health status (being healthy or sick): the rural older adults used the ability to handle routine chores as a measure of health status; (2) prioritization of solving symptoms over curing diseases: the older adults preferred the informal self-medication to cope with diseases, as long as there were no symptoms and no pain; (3) 'unpredictable' troubles: they tended to favor the 'optimal' solution of keeping their lives in order rather than the best medical treatment options. CONCLUSION: This study showed that the medical practices of the rural elderly were profoundly influenced by their perceptions of health and their life experiences. In the face of diseases, they tended to keep their lives in order, preferring self-treatment practices that address symptoms or selectively following medical advice rather than medical and science-based clinical solutions. In the future, the construction of rural health care should focus on changing the 'inaccessibility' of healthcare resources at the subjective level of the rural elderly and develop culturally adaptable health education.