2.2. Participants

A total of 52 participants (Table 1), including 32 elderly (aged 60 or over who had ever used “Ya-Luk-Ka-Tan-Yoo”), 15 family members of the elderly, and 5 other key informants were selected purposively.

Informants’ characteristics.

Most of the elderly were female (65.63%), with primary educational level (91.67%), and were Buddhist. Four lived alone, with the rest living with either spouses or school-aged grandchildren. Each elderly had at least one health problem, including hypertension (91.67%), and they regularly received services from the hospital for hypertension (91.67%), hyperlipidemia (66.67%), and diabetes (41.67%).

Twelve elderly family members were children of the elderly, while the rest were relatives, nieces, or nephews. Most of these informants (twelve) lived away from their elderly, eight of which lived far away for more than five years. All informants kept track of their elderly relatives’ well-being and illnesses through phone calls. Most of them made daily calls and only visited their parents 1–2 times annually.

The other key informants consisted of three close neighbors, who were found being mentioned by the elderly informants as the ones who well know their health, daily life, and medication practices and two local health personnel who frequently did home visits to the elderly as part of their primary care service.