Rethinking the Culture of Living of the Elderly in Iran

In recent years, due to a significant increase in the population of the elderly and remarkable changes in collective and individual life, the phenomenon of aging has become a social issue. The culture of living of the elderly as an important group of the society includes all aspects of the internal and external (subjective-objective) realities of their lives. This study aims at providing some practical strategies for changing, modifying, and improving the existing life condition of the elderly through examining the theoretical (subjective) structures and practical (objective) situations. The research method adopted here is a combined and convergent (simultaneous) angle design that includes two equally important qualitative and quantitative methods and the data with two theoretical perspectives of positive, interpretive, and analytical have helped to understand the practical life environment of the elderly and the influential factors affecting it. Rethinking study (meta-analysis) of the qualitative part at three levels of concepts, theories, methods, data and findings due to the necessity of examining the differences and contradictions in the findings of the research in the fields of psychology, sociology, etc. has been carried out so that more complete and comprehensive results can be achieved. Also, in the quantitative part, through testing the hypotheses with spss23 software, the relationship between the variables and the underlying factors and the effect of the variables on the living culture of the elderly hosted in Shahriyar nursing home have been analyzed and described. According to the interpretation of the results obtained through comparing and contrasting the quantitative and qualitative findings and combining them, variables of social participation (non-institutional) and social and family relations and underlying factors (marital status, employment status and education) with an important health factor and its dimensions (physical, psychological and social) have affected the culture of living of the elderly and have yielded the same results.