factors related to the usage of the medias medical programs by the audience

introduction: the media is so important in today’s life which addressing the issue of health without considering the role of the media is impossible. hence understanding the factors related to the use of the media medical programs by the audience, considering the communication capacity and establishing a scientific basis for the use of the media can help the health organizations to be more effective in promoting the community health.   methods: the method used in this study is a descriptive - analytical; survey and the questionnaire has been used as a tool to measure variables. the sample size of 600 individuals selected among citizens over 18 years of tehran in the first half of 1392. and spss software was used for data analysis. results: findings show that the more and education, the more use of the media medical programs. there is a significant relationship between independent variables of “respondents‘ satisfaction of the media medical programs“, “trust to the information provided by the media“, “the audience access to medical facilities“ and dependent variable one, “the use of the media medical programs“. conclusion: according to the relationship between the education and the use of medical programs it can be concluded that there is an obvious knowledge (gap) and health literacy gap between the audiences. we must use the capacity of the media to reduce this gap and ultimately decrease the health inequities in the society. satisfaction of audiences from the media’s medical programs has an important role to use these, so health authorities can use the capacity of the media to promote the public health by planning into the increase of the audience satisfaction from the media’s medical programs. however with regard to the fact that about 70% of respondents are averagely satisfied by medical programs and use them, we can conclude that the media has been successful to in meeting the health needs of the audiences. but findings also show that the audiences discussed the medical advices of the media to the specialists to inform the accuracy, which required heavy responsibility and a more detailed plan of the medical authorities to the next step -after medical messages of the media. keywords: health communication, knowledge gap, media literacy, uses and gratifications