ABSTRACT

Aim:

In this study, four most frequently read national newspapers as of July 1, 2015 were assessed to express elderly health and illnesses in writings (ok) which explore the concepts of agedness and health/illness by scanning the issues from 1 January to 30 June 2015.

Materials and Method:

This research is descriptive type made in National Library Periodicals Archive. 382 writings were reached in newspapers. Data were collected via forms, SPSS statistical software was used for data entry and analysis.

Results:

It was determined that 69.6% of the writings were informative type; 73.3% were in the main news-paper; 93.5% included pictures-graphics and 97.7% of these were colored; 77.5% had no element of advertis-ing; 52.6% had no reference; people placed in 67.3% of the writings were in accordance with the World Health Organization’s “elderly” definition (over 65 years); 24.9% of contents of the writings were about elderly health; 20.8% of them were about the psycho-social problems; 17.7% were about death news; 33.3% those men-tioned health problems of the elderly were about neurological diseases, 22.2% were about cardiovascular diseases, and 11.1% were about cancer; 61.3% of the total news were not related to health promotion policies; 26.2% of them were found as in accordance with health promotion policies.

Conclusion:

More than half of the elderly-related writings were informative type, columns and articles were less than 20% totally. Therefore media should give more space to these types to increase public awareness about elderly health and diseases. It was concluded as positive that majority of the writings had colored picture-graphic, thus it may increase the interest in such news.