Utilization of elderly health promotion services during COVID 19 in Iran: A cross-sectional study

The outbreak of COVID‑19 pandemic has made it difficult for older adults to utilize ordinary 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 the country’s comprehensive health system during the pandemic.

This descriptive‑analytical and cross‑sectional study was conducted on 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 older adults Questionnaires were consisted of three parts: demographic information, household’s economic status, and feeling the need, seek, and utilization from health promotion services. Multivariate logistic regression was used to separately model the need, seeking for, and utilization of health promotion services in STATA ver. 14.

The mean age of the older adults in this study was 68.88 ± 4.72 years. The results indicate that men showed significantly greater need, seek for, and utilization of health promotion services during COVID‑ 19 than women. According to the results, people over the age of 80 had 4.08 times (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.99–12.60) more need and utilization of health services than the older adults under 65 years. The results also indicate that use of health promotion services was significantly associated with being married (3.74, 95% CI: 1.22–2.62), having primary insurance and supplementary insurance (1.92, 95% CI: 1.21–3.12), and obesity (2.05, 95% CI: 1.13–3.76) in P < 0.05 level. Based on the results, people with chronic disease and obesity were more likely to utilize health promotion services.

Findings suggest that the access and utilization of inpatient and outpatient health services by the elderly in the COVID‑19 pandemic has somewhat decreased, which could be due to the fear of the disease being referred to health centers by the elderly. Hence, enabling conditions such as parental health care were major factors affecting health‑seeking habits among the Iranian elder population.