The purpose of this study was to identity the effects of a health promotion program for rural elderly on health promotion lifestyle and health status.

The study was a nonequivalent control group pre-post experimental design. Data collection was performed from April 12th, 2003 to August 2nd, 2003. The subjects were selected at Mari Myun Geochang Gun in Korea. 44 elders were in the experimental group and 45 elders were in the control group. The 16-week health promotion program was given to the experimental group. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistics, χ²-test, t-test, and ANCOVA test with SPSS/Win 10.0 program.

The experimental group showed higher scores of a health promotion lifestyle and perceived health status than the control group. In addition, systolic BP, heart rate, body fat and glucose of the experimental group were lower than the control group. Waist flexibility, left hand grip power, back strength and leg strength of the experimental group were higher than the control group. However, there were no significant differences in diastolic BP, total cholesterol and right hand grip power between the two groups.

This health promotion program for rural elderly can be recommended as an effective nursing intervention in rural communities.