Abstract:

This research has been made to study how the elders understand the terms of health, being healthy and caring for health within the framework of sociodemographic variables. It is a descriptive research and carried out in 5 rural health center regions under the control of Izmir Bornova Headquarters of Health Care Group between 1 and 30 May 2004. Data was collected by researchers, interviewing with 167 volunteer elder people who are above 60 years, by the use of an inquiry form consisting of 22 questions . Among the elderly, 70.7 percent of them were women and 29.3% were men and the mean age was 66.98 ± 6.88, 22.2% of the elders were born in abroad and 44.3% were born in the west part of Turkey, and 63.5 % of elders evaluated the “meaning of being healthy” in accordance with the physical dimension of health. It has been determined that there was no so much differences among the elders’ understanding of health and their evaluation, who were born in different geographical regions of Turkey. It has only been determined that the dimensions of health has been handled in a wider or narrower scope within the framework of some social characteristics.

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