Support Needs of Urban and Rural Elders in Kermanshah City, Iran

Background: Demographic changes all over the world confirm an increase in elderly populations, who require assistance and support. In order to plan support services this study aimed to compare support needs of urban and rural elders who referred to health centres in Kermanshah City, Iran, in 2016. Methods: The study design was descriptive-comparative. A total of 384 elderly (192 urban and 192 rural elderly) were selected by random cluster sampling method from all healthy elderly referring to health centers in Kermanshah. Data was collected by a demographic form and also the Supportive Care Need Scale to analyses the data, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. P value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant for all tests. Results: The results of this study, using the Independent t test, showed that the urban elders had more spiritual needs than the rural elderly (t=1.21, P=0.02). Also, the results of the Chi-square test showed that the differences between the two groups of the participants regarding health care needs (P<0.01), educational (P<0.001), recreation (P<0.001) and transportation (P<0.01) are significant. But there were no significant differences between rural and urban elderly in the case of nutritional needs (t=0.072, P=0.94), personal care (P=0.68), and housing (P=0.71). Conclusion: According to the findings, designing educational programs for urban elders would be effective in meeting their spiritual needs. On the other hand, establishing recreational facilities, meeting their health needs and increasing the level of literacy in rural elderly are essential to prevent their social isolation.