Introduction :The aim of this study is to predict the patient’s perception of physician empathy on the basis of perceived rejection and the perception of aging in the elders at army retired community.
Methods :For this study, 150 retried employees of army were selected by random sample method and they fill the Jefferson the patient’s perception of physician empathy scale, perception of aging questionnaire and perceived rejection scale. The data were analyzed by Pearson correlation and multiple
regression analysis.
Results :The results showed that there isn’t significant relationship between “patient’s perception of physician empathy & perception of aging” and “patient’s perception of physician empathy & perceived rejection”. Also variables of perception of aging & perceived rejection aren’t good predictor for patient’s perception of physician empathy.
Conclusion :Because of the physical and mental abilities decrease in elders and retirement ,they often need to the physician. Also feature related to their age affect their perceptions. Thus it’s necessary to teach empathy to doctors’ skills and nurses to be more important.
Key words :patient’s perception of physician empathy, perception of aging, perceived rejection, retried elders in army.