Aging is a normal process that implies continued growth, development and
adaptation until death. Moreover, the elderly can be a burden to themselves, their
families and their communities. The present study aims to assess knowledge,
attitudes and practices of workers in Assiut University toward the elderly care. The
subjects of the study consist of 624 working personnel in different faculties in Assiut
University setting. They were chosen using proportion allocation method which was
25% of the total number of working personnel in each faculty, the total number of the
workers in Assiut University was 2558. The results revealed that the mean age.ofthe
workers was 37.2 ±11.6; females represented 60% of the studied sample, 44% of
them were highly educated, and 81.0% of them living in urban communities, 45.8%
of them living with elderly persons at home, while 54.2% not living with them.
Majority of the studied sample had good knowledge regarding to the changes, which
occur to the elderly, such as nutrition, sleeping problems, accident and exercise,
while the majority of them had a poor knowledge regarding health promotion and
disease prevention of the elderly. Only 14.7% of the studied sample had a
satisfactory degree of practice toward the elderly care and the rest of them had a poor
degree of practice. Females in studied sample had more score in practice than males.
Those living in rural communities also had more score in knowledge and practice
than those living in urban communities. The portion of the studied sample that was
living with elderly persons, at their homes had high score in knowledge and practice
than who were not living with them. The present study can recommend developing
home-based care programs for elders who are residing at home and raising family
awareness of the ways of keeping good physical and mental health of the elderly
through information booklets and mass media.