Elderly People and Their Family Care Explanation of Their Experience From Age–Friendly City of Tabriz

Objectives: The world is aging. Elderly population of the cities increased from 45% in 1975 to 57% in 1995. WHO reported that the percentage of elderly population in the years 2006 and 2050 has the following: Africa (6%, 9%), Asia (9%, 24%), Europe (21%, 34%), Latin America and the Caribbean (9%, 24 %), North America (17%, 27%), Pacific (14%, 25%) respectively. In 1995, the population over 60 years in Iran was 6.6% of the total population. In 1999, this figure reached 7.8% and will be 10.3% in 2021. One necessary need of elderly people having a healthy environment and for providing this need in the world, many studies have been done. WHO is named this year (2011) "urbanization and health" and during an international project titled "Age-friendly cities" has clear priorities. Methods & Materials: There were a few reports on seniors in Iran, so this research was conducted based on elderly and their caregivers. Qualitative research method was used. Based on "purposeful sampling" method elderly people over 60 years were selected in two Shahid Montazeri and Shahid Monem Pour health centers of Tabriz. They arranged in eight-person groups and characteristics of age-friendly cities by the operator discuss proposed and the obtained comments of focus group discussions and recorded and wrote down line by line. The information analyzed as a "content analysis" and results were extracted. Results: The participants comments of Shahid Montazeri focus group discussion were as follows: the most common complaints were about sewer rats and non-existence of moral Security in the park, the second, leading cause of poor neighborhoods and parking lights on, the third was: trees are in front of lights. They said, "Station location is inappropriate and the toilet seat in the park does not exist". Comments of seniors in Zafaranieh health centers were as follows: Most complain were about of sewer rats, stray dogs, the lack of shelter in bus station-a bad positions of bus station, the lack of chairs in the station, bus delays and crowded shopping center and in the second were: sewage problems ,bad bus route, bad bus and bad traffic culture. Conclusion: The results showed there are required to intervention and collaboration of city organization for providing elder people needs.