Understanding the Elderly's Needs and Services regarding Services in Public Spaces in Yazd

Active aging is among the important concepts of health influenced by effective public services; understanding adults' needs and services are of great importance. This study aims to explain understanding older adults' needs for services in public places in Yazd city.

This qualitative study was done as conventional content analysis. Participants were 20 elderly people from Yazd selected by purposive sampling.  Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was done in three levels of open coding and formation of sub categories and main categories. The study was evaluated and approved by four criteria of creditability, tranformability, reliability, and confirmability.

In total, 564 open codes were extracted. Then, primary codes were compared based on similarity, compatibility, and appropriateness, and 66 subclasses were obtained. 14 main categories were obtained by compressing the subcategories. The 8 main categories regarding different services included:  healthcare, recreational, government agencies, transportation, communication and interaction, educational and research, religious and pilgrimage. In addition, regarding the older adults' needs, the 6 main categories included: improving the safety of places; providing effective education, mental, spiritual and social health development programs; improving services quality, reorganizing municipal services and provision of amenities.

Paying attention to the needs of the elderly is necessary in planning for  public spaces in cities. Regarding the need for comprehensiveness of services, it is suggested that the findings of this study be used in designing, implementing, and evaluating services in public places to their service needs and solve their problems.