پديد آورندگان :
رضواني، محمدرضا نويسنده دانشگاه تهران , , منصوريان ، حسين نويسنده دانشگاه تهران , , احمدآبادي، حسن نويسنده دانشگاه تهران , , احمدآبادي، فرشته نويسنده دانشگاه تهران ,
چكيده لاتين :
The main challenge for health in twenty century was survival, but in the new century the
life with a better quality is an important matter. Aging is an emotion period in human life
and attention to needs in this period is a social necessity. Therefore, attention to the quality
of life of elders is very important in the social policy. The number of the elderly is
increasing across the world and Iran is not exception in this regard. Notwithstanding such
an increase as a promising issue, neglecting elderliness and world population ageing can
make several problems in the future. From a demographic standpoint, although the ratio of
young people to the total population in Iran pinpoints a young population, drawing on the
1956 census, Iran’s population is aging. Around 6.2% of the population in 1966, 6.5% in
1976, 5.2% in 1986, 5.4% in 1996, 7.3% in 2006, and 8.3 in 2011 aged over 60 (Statistical
Center of Iran, 1956-2011). It is projected that the percentage of the elderly to the total
population will reach 10.5% in 2025 and surge to 21.7% in 2050. Having said this, there is
no room for neglecting the needs of elderly and planning for improving the Quality Of Life
(QOL) of elderly seems to be necessary.
1 Responsible Author: rrezvani@ut.ac.ir
Rural Research, Vol.4, No.2, Summer 2013
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Methodology
The present study elicited data using a predefined questionnaire delivered to study subjects
by the researcher, and the data was then analyzed using the SPSS software. A total number
of 150 elders aged 60 and over from 9 villages of the Neishabour County were selected
using the Cochran formula. Study Area. In 2006, elderly represented 7.27% of the total
population in Iran. This figure was 10.33% for the Khorasan-razavi province and for the
Neishabour county 10.04%. According to 2006 census, the total population of elders in the
Neishabour county was 39902, 16543 of whom were male and 23359 female. Breakdown
of population of elders over 60 in rural and urban districts also show that the rural elders
represent a high proportion of the total population in this city. The population of elders in
rural regions is 21728 (54.5%), while that of urban elders is 12165 (45.5%). Findings. In
the present research factor analysis was used to identify dimensions of QOL of elderly in
rural regions of the Neishabour county. Factor analysis is a statistical technique which is
normally exploited for extraction of non-dependent subset of reagents explaining the
observed variance in a set of initial data. The reagents used in factor analysis included 36
subjective reagents which have been complied in a survey from the elderly in the studied
region. The KMO coefficient as well as the Bartlett test were used for investigating the
suitability of the data for factor analysis. For the present study, the KMO value equaled
0.849 and the Bartlett test enjoyed a significance level about 0.000 indicating the suitability
of the data for factor analysis. The results attained from factor analysis manifested 10 key
factors in determining subjective dimensions of QOL of the elderly. The 10 key factors
constituted 74.016 percent of the total variance, of which the first factor was the most
important with 19.250 percent of the total variance. Further, a high internal reliability
which equaled 0.851 was achieved for the subjective dimensions of QOL.
Discussion and Concluding Remarks
Accessibility and quality of sanitary services which comprise ease of access to sanitary
services, contentment with one’s access to sanitary services and benefiting from such
services also exert a vital influence on QOL of the rural elderly. Rural elderly are in a good
condition in terms of their access to health services yet they are deprived in terms of their
benefit from such services not receiving much attention. Social factors such as intimate
relations with neighbors, contentment with conditions of residence, participation in
friendship groups and contentment with relations with other people also play a crucial role
in QOL of the rural elderly. Furthermore, social relation networks such as contact with
friends and acquaintances and profiting from their support could exert major influences on
QOL of the elderly. Given the small milieu where rural elders live, their familiarity with
each other, face-to-face relations, the need for teamwork as well as a sense of belonging to
the place they reside, they enjoy desirable social relations which consequently augment
their QOL. Social cohesion, e.g. having someone to pour their heart out for them,
participation in religious and group activities is also of vital effectiveness. Social
interaction among the studied elderly is relatively high given that activities in rural regions
Rural Research, Vol.4, No.2, Summer 2013
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require teamwork; this teamwork leads to participation in the affairs of the team; hence,
social interaction increases as a result of the aforesaid reasons. Further, grounded on the
statistical results, no significant relationship could be observed between QOL and gender,
age, housing status, life accompaniers, ownership of vehicles, natural position of the village
as well as distance from cities. Since the majority of the elderly in the studied sample was
deprived of official education and was illiterate, it is not possible to draw any conclusive
conclusions on the correlation between education and QOL of the elderly in the present
study. Based on the obtained statistical data, literacy is very low among the rural elderly
influencing all economical, social, and cultural aspects of people’s life in the investigated
area. No correlation was also found between gender and QOL given that a large number of
males are employed in agriculture-animal husbandry and most females are housewife. On
the other hand, there exists a significant relationship between QOL and marital status,
monthly income of the elderly, as well as their income sources
