The purpose of this research has been the study of socio-demographic determinants of health promoting lifestyle among older adults (60 and more years old). The statistical sample including 400 older adults in the city of Shiraz are chosen by proportional stratified-sampling method. We used survey and structured questionnaire for data gathering.
The study results indicated that, in general, 68 percent of respondents achieved an average score in the HPL scale and were categorized into the middle-level of health promoting lifestyles. And also, findings showed that health promoting lifestyle varies by socio-demographic variables.
Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The findings suggest some key factors in predicting the health promoting lifestyles; social support, perceived self-efficacy, education, perceived health status, development level of place of residence, gender, prior health behaviors, ageing perception and living arrangements variables are the determinants of health promoting lifestyle and have a significant effect on it. The most effective variable is social support in this study. In sum, these factors explained 64 percent variance of dependent variable (health promoting lifestyle). In addition, path analysis results showed six other variables including age, social class identity, job status, income, ethnicity, and rural/urban birth place have indirect effects on health promoting lifestyle.