Utilization of elderly health promotion services during COVID 19 in Iran: A cross‑sectional study
نویسندگان
1 Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil, Iran
2 Department of Community Medicine, School of Medicine, Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil, Iran
3 Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil, Iran Department of Community Medicine, School of Medicine, Ardabil University of Medical Sciences, Ardabil, Iran
doi
چکیده
BACKGROUND: The outbreak of COVID‑19 pandemic has made it difficult for older adults to utilizeordinary elder services. This cross‑sectional study investigated the status of feeling the need, seek,and utilization of health promotion services among older adults in Ardabil, Iran, covered by thecountry’s comprehensive health system during the pandemic.MATERIALS AND METHODS: This descriptive‑analytical and cross‑sectional study was conductedon 739 elderly people in Ardabil province. Cluster random sampling method was used for sampling.Data were gathered by referring trained individuals to the place of residence of the selected olderadults Questionnaires were consisted of three parts: demographic information, household’s economicstatus, and feeling the need, seek, and utilization from health promotion services. Multivariate logisticregression was used to separately model the need, seeking for, and utilization of health promotionservices in STATA ver. 14.RESULTS: The mean age of the older adults in this study was 68.88 ± 4.72 years. The resultsindicate that men showed significantly greater need, seek for, and utilization of health promotionservices during COVID‑ 19 than women. According to the results, people over the age of 80 had4.08 times (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.99–12.60) more need and utilization of health servicesthan the older adults under 65 years. The results also indicate that use of health promotion serviceswas significantly associated with being married (3.74, 95% CI: 1.22–2.62), having primary insuranceand supplementary insurance (1.92, 95% CI: 1.21–3.12), and obesity (2.05, 95% CI: 1.13–3.76) inP < 0.05 level. Based on the results, people with chronic disease and obesity were more likely toutilize health promotion services.CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that the access and utilization of inpatient and outpatient healthservices by the elderly in the COVID‑19 pandemic has somewhat decreased, which could be dueto the fear of the disease being referred to health centers by the elderly. Hence, enabling conditionssuch as parental health care were major factors affecting health‑seeking habits among the Iranianelder population.
