According to the studies, the health promoting lifestyle helps the increase in quality of life.[10,11] Also the presented data about the main reasons of mortality indicate that 53% of mortality reasons is related to the lifestyles and unhealthy behaviors.[12,13] The fulfilled studies about the lifestyle and health promoting behaviors in Iran show that the most prevalent cause of morality in age groups over 50 years of age that includes cardiovascular diseases, cancer, pulmonary diseases and accidents is related to prevalent preventive risk factors dependent on the lifestyles.[14] Despite the importance of issue the studies and researches in regards to effective factors on the elderly lifestyle and health promotion behaviors by using suitable theoretical frameworks is not sufficient.
One of the widespread models used in various studies in the world is the Pender model of health promotion. The presented model by Pender is comprehensive and predictive, used for analyzing health promotion behaviors. In other words, this model exhibits the theoretical framework that is used for discovering effective factors on health promotion behaviors and hence, it could be appropriate for improving health and the quality of life. In 1987, Pender described his health promotion model as a framework for expressing healthy behaviors that is based on the movement of individuals towards a positive situation for improving the health; his model emphasizes the importance of cognitive processes and controlling the behaviors.[15] There are several reasons for choosing this model as study framework.
• The health promoting behaviors have complex natures that affected by several factors. This model can provide a suitable framework to understand these behaviors
• Family support, friends and health care workers are considered as important factors for obligations regarding healthy behaviors. Hence, this model that introduces health care workers, friends and family as important resources for the obligations towards healthy behavior seems to be effective in creating the required behavior
• This model is used for a wide range of healthy behaviors such as hearing protections, primary diagnosis of cancer, admitting drugs and medicine, etc., and it seems that it has general applications in all the healthy behaviors, but it has not been considered in different populations
• Although widespread research has been done on the health for the elderly, but there have been few research about health promotion behaviors and effective factors on the health of old people on the basis of Pender model in this class of population
• Although HPM model has been used as a framework for some studies, but it has not been adequately used as a causation model in health behaviors of different communities.
Hence, regarding the importance of the subject and due to lack of previous studies, this research was done for the aim of considering effective factors on health promotion behaviors and health status of the elderly in Dena, according to some of the components of the Pender model. The resulted information could describe the efficiency of Pender health