fa سیاست گذاری سلامت Health Policy پژوهشي Research <span style="font-size:9pt"><span minion="" pro="" style="font-family:"><b>Introduction</b>: The elderly are one of the main groups receiving healthcare services. Identification of the healthcare utilization rate by elderly and its determinants are essential to formulate the national priorities. This study was aimed to assess the utilization rate of health care by elderly in outpatient services and its determinants in Southern Tehran.</span></span><br> <span style="font-size:9pt"><span minion="" pro="" style="font-family:"><b>Materials & Methods</b><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">: </span></span></b>We performed a cross-sectional questionnaire survey on a random sample of the elderly aged 60 years and older, who are covered by south Tehran healthcare centers (n=440). Analyses included descriptive statistics and chi-square test.<span lang="FA" dir="RTL" style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></span></span><br> <span style="font-size:9pt"><span minion="" pro="" style="font-family:"><b>Results</b><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">: &nbsp;</span></span></b>Generally, most of the elderly (60%) visited public hospitals to receive healthcare services in the past year. statistical relationships were observed between &quot;visiting rates of the subjects&quot; and gender (P=0.01), self-assessed of current health status (P=0.001), the habit of exercise (P=0.04) and perceived need for care (P=0.01).</span></span><br> <span style="font-size:9pt"><span minion="" pro="" style="font-family:"><b>Conclusion</b><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times="">: &nbsp;</span></span></b>The pattern of using healthcare centers in the elderly depended on some demographic characteristics, such as gender and personal exercise habits and also their preference toward the place where services are provided; which should be taken into consideration by policy makers in order to provide required services for the elderly.</span></span><br> &nbsp; Aging, Elderly, Health Service, Iran 1 8 http://jhsp.medilam.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-25-1&slc_lang=fa&sid=1 Jamil Sadeghifar 1003194753284600330 1003194753284600330 No Seyed Meysam Mousavi 1003194753284600331 1003194753284600331 No Zahra Toulideh 1003194753284600332 1003194753284600332 No Sonya Khosravi 1003194753284600333 1003194753284600333 No Mozhgan Letafatnejad 1003194753284600334 1003194753284600334 Yes Rizwana Hussain 1003194753284600335 1003194753284600335 No MBBS, MPH, Ph.D in Health Policy (Public Health), Abbottabad International Medical College and Hispital Hospital, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan