الفهرس 
Introduction
MethodsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 113 |  |  |
| | | from | 113 | | |
Abstract
Self-care is the practice of activities that the elders personally initiate and perform on their own behalf for maintaining life, health, and well being. Self-care practices would increase elders’ overall health status and general wellbeing. As well, it promotes elders feeling of competence, and strengthens their self-concept. It also acts as a preventive measure against major events in elders’ life as functional decline, institutionalization, and chronic illnesses. At the same time self-care deficit is associated with many physical, psychological, and social problems.
Many real Barriers get in the elders’ way of being independent in old age including normal physical, social, cognitive, and psychological changes or pathological changes. Also, life style, social cultural factors, personal factors, quality of life, and effective of nursing have been found to be associated with self-care. Gerontological nurse should start nursing management with assessment of these factors and plan for how to increase self-care capabilities and how to decrease self-care limitations.
The aim of this study was to determine factors related to self-care capabilities among institutionalized elders.
The study was carried out in two governmental homes (Dar El Hedaya, and Dar El Hana) and two private ones (Dar Mohamed Ragab, and Dar Ahmos Khalifa) in Alexandria. All residents who fulfilled the following criteria (elders who age 60 years and more of both sexes, able to communicate, accepted to participate in the study and available at the time of data collection) were included in the study. Their number amounted to 124 58 from governmental homes and 66 from private ones.