STUDY OF KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES REGARDING THE PROVISION OF HEALTH SERVICES AMONG THE HEALTH WORKERS AT ELDERLY RESIDENTS

Elderly person is a person, whose age ranged from 65 years old or older. The elderly people are characterized by unique and varied entities, which require a variety of healthcare professionals to meet their healthcare needs. There is a growing demand for health professionals to demonstrate appropriate attitudes toward older people and to improve their knowledge and commitment to working with older people in diverse settings in the context of a rapidly ageing population. A cross sectional descriptive institutional base study was conduct at elderly residents in Khartoum state with the aim to assess knowledge, attitudes and practices towards the provision of health services among health workers. Data was collected by questionnaire and observational checklist. The collecting data was analyzed by the computer software programme (SPSS) and chi square test was used to show the association between different variables. The results revealed that the overall 40.6%, of participants have excellent, 32.8% have good and 26.6% have poor knowledge. Concerning overall attitudes, the vast majority (90.6%) has favor attitudes and 9.4% have unfavourable attitudes towards provision of health services, while 50% have good practices concerning provision of health services. 65.6% of the participants were satisfied by their job while 34.4% were somewhat satisfied. Ministry of Social Development should ensure high quality provision of the health services.