Psychometric and psychological characteristics of elder people’s response to question about their health

Introduction: It was shown that elder people’s self-perceptive health isn`t only under emphasis of physical function and other factors like social and cognitive functions effect on it. Aim: This research investigates psychometric and psychological characteristics of elder people’s response to questions about their health during an eighth-year study. Method: The research design was a 2 × 4 factorial design which was conducted during the years 1387 to 1395. In order to achieve the purpose of the study, a sample of 393 elderly people of Isfahan city was selected by non-randomly purposeful sampling method and their self-rating health, physical, social and cognitive functions, depression, and the number of chronic diseases were measured four time. mixed ANOVA was used to analyze the data. Results: Findings showed that the elder people’s response to question about their health should not be investigated across a given time because in this condition its validity would be weak. Investigations of validity in four profiles that are created by two kind of response during two time duration (good-good, good-bad, bad-good, bad-bad); was higher and is an strong index of response validity. Also poor, mediate and strong physical activities and social and cognitive functions impact on elder people’s self-perceptive health. Conclusion: According to findings, it is recommended that elder people should do any kind of poor, mediate and strong physical activities that they can for better self-health and improve their social and cognitive functions to have a better understanding of their health.