Knowledge, attitude and practice of middle age and elder women about self care in health centers of ahvaz, iran

Background: Self-care is a multidimensional construct that includes all activities related to maintaining health, preventing and treating disease by themselves. Adoption proper behaviors needs good knowledge, perception and behaviors of individual. The aim of this study was to assess knowledge, attitude and practice of middle age and elderly women about self-care. Methods: The study included 440 middle-aged and elderly women attending to public health centers in Ahvaz, Iran. Middle age and elderly women who were resident of Ahvaz were chosen from six health clinics. Women who resident of elderly house and who with disability were excluded from study. A questionnaire consisting of two parts (a-satisfaction with health, preventive factors, enabling factors, sources of information (b) improve the symptoms of menopause) was used to collect data. Results: The mean age of middle age and elder women was 51.6% and 48.4% respectively. Only 34.5% of participants had a good performance in healthy lifestyle and self-care. Most of women had poor knowledge, attitude and practice regarding self care (69.6, 57.8%- and 88%- respectively). There was no significant relationship between age and the applied self-care activities to relieve menopausal symptoms. Conclusions: The findings of this study showed that knowledge, attitude and practice of Iranian middle age and elderly women about self care were not satisfactory. Therefore there is need to some interventional program to improve the level of knowledge, attitude and practice of women about healthy lifestyle and self -care.