[Effect of self-care training program on quality of life of elders]

ABSTRACT

Nowadays the elderly population is growing all over the world. Diseases and conditions resulting from this evolutionary process can be costly to governments and cause many disabilities which severly affect the erderly's quality of life. This study aims to determine the effect of self-care training program on quality of life of elderly. It is a controlled randomized trial which was carried out on 60 elderly referred to Omid's elderly care center in Borougen city. After convenience sampling, the elderly were randomly assigned to two groups of experimental [n=30] and control [n= 30] groups. The experimental group participated in a three months self- care training program. Data was collected by the Short Form Health Survey [SF-36] and analyzed using SPSS-PC [v.11]. The findings showed a significant difference in the mean scores of quality of life between the experimental and control groups [P<0.05] after intervention. Self- care education to elderly about the practices of proper nutrition, exercise, rest and medication can prevent a lot of problems and help them to improve their quality of life