Acceptability of middle-aged self-care program of the Iranian Ministry of Health

The middle-aged are a significant group of the population. The aim of this study was to assess the acceptability of the middle-aged self-care program implementation.

This was a two phase study. At first stage qualitative study was conducted. In this stage recipients and service providers participated in two focus group interviews about key points of the program and convention content analysis was performed.  Then a descriptive study was conducted to assess the acceptability of the program from the perspective of recipients and providers. This study was conducted using two separate questionnaires. The validity and reliability of the questionnaires were evaluated. In all 300 care receivers and the whole target group of providers were surveyed.

The acceptability of program from the perspective of service recipients was examined by dimensions derived from the qualitative study. These dimensions were: responding to health needs, adapting to the conditions of service recipients, program benefits and side effects, participation, service delivery processes, and satisfaction. The study findings showed that acceptability was high for ‘the service delivery processes’ and ‘satisfaction’ and was low for ‘public participation’. However, assessing the perspective of managers and service providers indicated that the acceptability was high for ‘meeting healthcare needs’ and it was low for ‘compliance with the conditions of service recipients’.

Implementing the program requires resources and infrastructure. The pilot implementation of the program and the evaluation of it will play an important role in successful implementation of the program. As such the successful implementation of the middle-aged health self-care program could improve the responsibility of individuals in maintaining and promoting of their health.