Turkish Journal of Geriatrics 2009 , Vol 12, Issue 1
PATTERN OF UTILIZATION OF HEALTH SERVICES AMONG OLD AGE GROUPS IN RURAL AREA OF NORTH OF IRAN
Guilan University, Community Medicine RASHT, Ä°RAN Introduction: Increasing life span has resulted in a notable growth of the elderly population in human societies. Strategic policy formation in all health care systems should be based on information relating to health utilization behavior and the factors determining these behaviors.

Materials and Method: In this cross sectional study, 2968 households in rural area of Guilan in which household head or senior person above 15 years old was interviewed using a structural questionnaire. Questionnaire was consisting of demographic variables, need of medical care and visit of health services in last month.

Results: In this study 12086 people (family size 4.7) were interviewed. 1624 subjects (13.4%) were old ages.

422 persons (26%) reported of at least one medical problem in the last month.24 persons (5.7%) had not sought any medical attention and 2 (1.2%) had self-treatments. The main sources of medical attention were private clinics (46.8).

The most reasons for the visiting the health care centers was musculoskeletal pain (24.4%).

Conclusion: It was seemed that utilization of health centers with old age groups is more than two times in comparison to other age groups that it must be notice in future strategic planning of health care systems. Keywords : Health care system, Health utilization, Rural, Elderly