A Review of Human Dignity in the Elderly and Its Related

One of the most important points that need to be observed in taking care of the elderly is maintaining their dignity. Considering the fact that the elderly suffer from chronic diseases and a reduction of physical ability, observing their dignity has received less attention while caretaking and health control. Accordingly, the purpose of the present study has been to review human dignity in the elderly and its related factors. The present narrative review investigates Persian and English articles on human dignity in the elderly published from 2000 until the end of 2017. Using key word search about the title or abstract section in the Databases such as Iranmedex, Medlib, SID, Magiran and Google Scholar for Persian article and databases such as Google Scholar, Science direct, PubMed and Proquest Elsevier were searched for English articles using the following keywords in both Persian and English, the search was done. The key words in English include "dignity" and "Dignified care" along with the single words "old people", "elderly" and "aging". After searching, 67 articles were found and finally, 12 articles had the inclusion criteria. Findings showed that respecting human dignity is one of the most important needs of the elderly and must be considered as an important phenomenon in taking care of the elderly, at the community level and health service centers. Several factors are associated with the dignity of the elderly, including: respect, privacy protection, independence, support, illness and hospitalization. The results of this study can guide policy makers, managers and caregivers of the elderly in order to provide things that are important from the perspective of the elderly to protect their dignity, but are less respected.