Background and Aim: Elderly is a sensitive period of life in which older people are exposed to potential threats. Improving the quality of life of an elderly requires proper implementation of health plans. The quality of life of an elderly depends on access to health services and educational opportunities. One of the empowering methods in the older people is education. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of integrated health program on quality of life in elderly.
Material and Method: This quasi-experimental study was performed as pre-test and post-test on 250 elderly people of Malekshahi who were selected through convenience sampling (census). Data were collected by Lipad Standard Quality of Life Questionnaire before the intervention and six months after the intervention. The educational intervention was based on the Integrated Elderly Health Guidelines by the Ministry of Health 2017 edition and implemented during six one-hour sessions. Data were analyzed by SPSS 20 software using descriptive statistics and paired t-test.
Results: The results showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of elderly people's quality of life in physical dimensions, self-care, depression and anxiety, sex and life satisfaction before and after intervention (P <0.05). There was no significant difference in social and cognitive dimensions (P> 0.05).There was no significant difference between the integrated programs on different aspects of quality of life in terms of gender, marital status and education status of the elderly.
Conclusion: It is suggested that educational intervention based on the Integrated Elderly Health Program can be one of the strategies to improve the quality of life of the elderly.