The Study of Self-Assessed Health between the Elderly of Shirazand YasujCities in 2015

Self-Assessed health is a way to assess the individual’s health and identifies complete information in biological, mental, and spiritual and functional area. Studying the person's health status from their viewpoint is an important evaluation in terms of public health status of society. Health self- assessment by a person is an international known index and has a wide usage for the person’s health status in public health research and epidemiology. The aim of this study is to assess the health of the elderly in the city of Shiraz and Yasuj.The population of the study included elderly people over 65 years who were residents of Shiraz and Yasuj.The sample size included 760 elders selected by random clustering sampling method.Descriptive and inferential statisticswas used for the data analysis by means of SPSS.The average of four aspects of the health was 75.18 ± 14.95 that 63.8 percent of them found their health status in the mean level. Demographic variables such as age, education, socio-economic class, employment status, marital status, ethnicity, the number of children, the history of patient had significant relation with self-assessment health. There was not any significant relation between gender and health self-assessment. In addition, the cultural and social values such as health behaviors, social support, self-esteem using media, having relation and being intimate with children and friends have a significant relation with self-assessment health. Statistic determination coefficient (R2) also shows that 40 percent of changes of the dependent value (self-assessment) are explained by 7 independent values remained in the equation and includes self- esteem, the patient history, the number of children, health behavior, ethnicity, education, social support. How valuable and how one feels about himself can effect on health assessment. This study showed that the status of health in Shiraz and Yasuj was in the mean level and authorities need to support more for that.