| Abstrakt: |
Background: Rapid population aging will lead to increasing demands on the care of population in developing countries. And because the elderly people are at high risk for disease and disability, this population aging will place urgent demands on these countries health care systems; hence the knowledge, attitudes and practices of doctors in primary health care centers plays key role in improving the geriatric care. Objectives of the Study: Assessment of the knowledge, attitudes and practices of doctors working in age friendly primary health care centers toward geriatrics in Baghdad-Al Rusafa health directorate, and comparing the results with the knowledge, attitudes and practices of doctors working in primary health care centers not applying Age-friendly toolkit toward geriatrics in the same health directorate .Subjects & Methods: A cross sectional study with analytic elements was conducted. The data were collected by direct interviews with the doctors of the 31 age-friendly PHCs and other PHCs not applying age-friendly tool kit and they completed a prepared questionnaire form. Questionnaire consisted from 4 parts: sociodemographic data, Knowledge, attitudes and practices of doctors. Results: 110 doctors from age friendly PHCs and 110 doctors from other PHCs not applying age friendly toolkit participated in the study. In Age friendly PHCs; the mean age was 40.9 years, while in the other PHCs: 46.7 years. The majority of doctors in the Age- friendly PHCs and the other PHCs were females 70.9% and 63.6% respectively. Almost half of the studied physicians in Age friendly PHCs had a board degree in family medicine, while in other PHCs only 8.2% were family doctors with a degree of board. In Age friendly PHCs; Knowledge of doctors had a mean score significantly higher than the other PHCs (44.2 and 41.5 respectively); good knowledge in Age friendly was in 20% of doctors, and in 4.5% of doctors in other PHCs. Regarding attitudes; No statistical difference between the two groups, and when classifying the level of attitudes, we had Acceptable attitude towards elderly in Age-friendly PHCs and other PHCs 88.2% and 81.8% respectively and Good attitude is 4.5% and 5.5% respectively. Doctors in Age friendly PHCs have better practices towards elderly than the other PHCs, 70.9% of Doctors in Age friendly and 54.5% in other PHCs have good practices. Conclusions: Most of the doctors participated in the study showed acceptable knowledge and attitudes, while practices were good in most of them. Knowledge and practices of doctors working in age friendly PHCs were significantly better than the other PHCs, Attitudes didn’t show significant difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
