Investigating the effect of self-management program on self-efficacy of elderly women in West Tehran

Introduction: The need to pay attention to the elderly is considered very important due to the increase in their number, in this period of life, the health of the elderly is threatened due to the weakness of the immune system and chronic diseases. It is possible to bring the elderly to maximum independence and health improvement with the self-management program, which is one of the rehabilitation methods and the patient plays the main role in it. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the effect of the self-management program on the self-efficacy of elderly women in west Tehran. Materials and methods: The year 2017 of this research was conducted as a randomized semi-experimental study of two groups, in which 68 elderly women referring to nursing homes in the West neighborhood of Tehran were included in the study and randomly divided into two intervention and control groups. Were allocated. First, demographic and self-efficacy questionnaires were completed by both groups. Then the intervention group participated in the 8-session self-management training program. One and three months after the end of the intervention, the self-efficacy questionnaire was completed again by two groups. For data analysis, chi-square, Fisher's exact, independent t test and analysis of covariance were used with SPSS version 16 software. Findings: According to the findings of the research, before the intervention, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic characteristics and they were homogeneous, and there was no statistically significant difference in terms of self-efficacy (p=0.94). In this sense, they were homogeneous. One and three months after the intervention, the statistical difference between the two groups was significant (p<0.001). Conclusion: The findings of this research show that teaching self-management skills to elderly women is effective on self-efficacy, as a result, the training and implementation of this program changes the self-efficacy of elderly women, and by increasing the self-efficacy of elderly women, it can be claimed that it can lead to increase the sense of independence in life and as a result improve their quality of life and efficiency.