Exploring the nature of elderly people life style: A grounded theory

Our community which now is walking into the graying of population era, could be exposed to various health care difficulties arising from the extended needs of elderly people. Existing evidence in developed countries has shown that a major cause of mortality is unhealthy life styles which may rise with aging. Due to the priority of prevention and risk factors control, designing a native promoting life style model for Iranian elderly seems an inevitable endevour. So, this research conducted with clarifying the concept, structure, and process nature of life style in Iranian elderly population by qualitative method. To achieving this aims a qualitative research method according to grounded theory was performed. We attempt to explore the concept, structure, and process nature and process of taking of life style in elderly population, by purposeful sampling at first and then continued by theoretical sampling sampling until data saturation. Unstructured interview was used for data collection. Participants of this study were elderly people (living with their families). 29 in depth individual interviews with 23 male and female participants were done. Collected data were transcript immediately and analysis using Strauss and Corbin approach 1998 was implemented. The following eight axial categories were emerged from the data analysis: aging restrictions, daily living behaviors, socio-familial structure, self-management, health deficits, insufficient efficacy, insufficient readiness and sprituality. Category of daily living behaviors was considered as phenomenon, self-management as action/reaction strategy, and health deficits as the consequence of these strategies. The category of spirituality, insufficient efficacy and insufficient readiness were the intervening conditions that affect the process nature of daily living behaviors promotion. Also self-management was found as the central category in this research. According to the consequences of the strategies adopted, it could be argued that older people are not healthy life style and their health has deficient. Based on the results of current grounded theory qualitative study, modification of unhealthy life style related behaviors seems essential.