The Journal of

Introduction: The elderly age has its own special needs and difficulties. The present study aimed to determine health status and health needs of the elderly in Ilam Province.

Methods: Through this descriptive analytical cross sectional study, 1012 elderly residents in eight cities of Ilam province were selected based on an appropriate proportion and hen were interviewed face to face completing a valid and reliable questionnaire. Analyzing the study data was performed by ANOVA test applying SPSS software and p-values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Result: Out of 1012 participants, 60.5% were males and 39.5% were females. Mean age was 71.1±8.02 year, and the most age group was 65-69. Overall, 38/6% were covered by health insurance organizations. Mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure of participants were 13.38 and 11.76 respectively. The mean BMI of the study population was 25.72, 36.1% were reported to have heart disease history, 15% had diabetes, 22.5% had respiratory problems and 16.3% were addicted to cigarettes. Moreover, 45.3% had history of surgery, 72.8% experienced joint pain, 64.6% reported skeletal pain and 12.6% had history of stroke. Falling from height (18%) was demonstrated the highest rate of accidents for the elderly.

Conclusions: The prevalent health problems of old people in Ilam mainly referrs to non-communicable disorders specifically cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Health promoting interventions seem to be necessitated for the elderly in order to have a healthy elderly life.