Primary Health Care Physicians' Knowledge and Attitude towards Elderly in Baghdad/Al-Karkh-2018

, Waleed Arif Al-Ani; , Noor Hassan Abdul-Wahab

	Primary Health Care Physicians' Knowledge and Attitude towards Elderly in Baghdad/Al-Karkh-2018
Iraqi Postgraduate Medical Journal
Article 1, Volume 18, Issue 3, 2019, Pages 260-268 PDF (0 K)
Authors
Waleed Arif Al-Ani; Noor Hassan Abdul-Wahab
Abstract
BACKGROUND: It is important for primary health care (PHC) physicians to possess adequate knowledge and attitude towards geriatrics to cope with the increasing number of elderly patients care during their daily practice. OBJECTIVE: To assess the knowledge and attitude of PHC physicians towards elderly and to study the relation between some factors with physicians’ knowledge and attitude. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted in 31 PHC centers in Baghdad/Al-Karkh for a period of 3 months from 1st of March to the end of May 2018. A self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection which covered some physicians' characteristics. RESULTS: Out of 225 PHC physicians working at the chosen PHC centers, 200 physicians enrolled in the study, with a response rate of 88.88%. The results showed that only 27.5% of physicians had good knowledge levels and 117 (58.5%) had positive attitude. Better levels of knowledge and attitude were achieved by family physicians, females in addition to those who work for less than 5 years in PHC centers. CONCLUSION: Despite positive attitude of physicians towards elderly, better training and continuing medical education are important to improve the knowledge of physicians to ensure better services.
Keywords
Knowledge; Attitude; Aging; PHC physicians

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