Assessment of barriers to elderly health education from health care providers opinions in the urban family physician plan of Babol city in 1399

  Introduction: Health education as the first and most important component of primary health care is one of the serious duties of health center staff. This study aimed to assessment of barriers to elderly health education from health care providers opinions employed in the urban family physician plan of Babol city in 1399.  Methods: This study was a cross-sectional (descriptive-analytical) study in which 108 health care providers were selected by census method of sampling. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire. At the end of the quantitative questionnaire, two open-ended questions were considered for interviews with health care providers to examine their views from different perspectives. The obtained data from the quantitative questionnaire were analyzed using Statistical tests and P ‹ 0.05 was considered significant. Finally, the findings of the quantitative questionnaire and the interview were combined based on a combined explanatory model. Results: The quantitative study results of the present study showed that the most important barriers to elderly health education for health care providers was lack of time due to workload, which 49.1% of caregivers reported its impact was high. Among the demographic variables only the age factor had a significant relationship with elderly educational barriers (P=0/004). Also, the interview findings in this study showed that more health care providers expressed high working load (24.6%) and low salaries (21.5%) as the most educational barriers. Conclusion: According to the results, it is suggested that the official authorities, by providing the necessary manpower in various departments and reducing working load and increasing the level of satisfaction of health care providers regarding the amount salaries, make to encourage health care providers to consider this important issue.