Strategies for Promoting Elders’ Health with Sporting Activities: A Qualitative Study

Elderly age is an evolutionary stage and one of the most important periods of life for every human, and exercise plays an important role in the physical and mental health of elderly people. According to the importance of the subject, the aim of this study is identification of strategies for promoting the health of elderly with sporting activities. This qualitative study was carried out based on content analysis method. The participants were selected via purposive sampling method. The data collection tool was a semi-structured interview. Researcher reached theoretical saturation after 12 interviews with the elderly and 16 interviews with the key informants. After collecting data, qualitative content analysis method was used for its analysis. 10 themes and 21 subthemes were emerged from data analysis. The themes included establishment of an elderly sports organization, codify a strategic and operational program for the development of older sports, Setting up elder sport rules, Development of places and sports spaces for elders, providing expert human resources, establishing a research and development unit for elderly sports, development of advertising, development and improvement of service quality, development of the culture of aging sports, development of budget for the elderly sports. The results of the study identified ten strategies for improving the health of the elderly with sports activities. According to the findings, it is suggested that managers while planning the promotion of elderly people’s health, considere achieved strategies.