Journal of Preventive Medicine

Introduction: Difference in factors affecting elderly energy consumption leads to difference in their energy consumption. This study aims to investigate Activity related energy consumption and associated factors in physical Activity of Kashan city elderly.

Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in 2014. The study populations were elderly above 60 years old covered by health care center in Kashan, Iran. The subjects selected by multi stage-cluster sampling method. The sample size was 400-subject according to Cochran formula and previous studies. The Cluster sizes were different according to gender and living area. The demographic characteristics, body mass index, and energy consumption for physical activity were recorded in the questionnaires. Data analyzed by SPSS version 16. Descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, spearman correlation coefficient, Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U test and ordinal regression used in data analysis. The significance level for all the tests was 0.95.

Results: The females in this study were 237 subjects (59.2 %). The average age and activity energy consumption of studied population were 67.6±6.8 years 326.21±364.84 MET, respectively. According to the results 85% of elderly were in lack and low level of activity energy consumption. Elderly men had more activity energy consumption than elderly women (P<0.05). Our results indicated signification relationship between energy gender (p=0.01), marital status (p=0.003), living place (p=0.011), education (0.025), and dependency for movement (p=0.00) and activity energy consumption in the studied population. In addition Effective predictors of activity energy consumption in the studied population were gender (CI=0.720, 2.469, p=0.00), current job (CI=0.157, 1.669, P=0.018), living place (CI=0.444,-1.891, P=0.002), and dependency for movement (CI=1.084,-2.343, P=0.00).

Conclusion: as most of the studied elderly were at low level of activity energy consumption, it can be concluded that current educational programs are insufficient or ineffective. Changing the current trends and paying attention to the factors associated with elderly activity can enhance the situation.