fa عمومى General پژوهشي Research <p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Background:</strong> Because of vulnerability of the elders in disasters, preparedness of this group is&nbsp;very important in reducing the damages caused by the earthquake. Therefore, the present study&nbsp;designed and conducted with the purpose of developing interventions to increase earthquake&nbsp;preparedness and risk reduction in the elderly people living in Hadishahr Jolfa City, Iran.<br> <strong>Materials and Methods: </strong>This study was a quasi-experimental study with pretest, posttest&nbsp;design and a control group. Fifty community dwelling elderly people were selected through&nbsp;simple random sampling method from 2 health centers and randomly allocated to intervention&nbsp;and control groups. Intervention program consisted of educational sessions with slideshows,&nbsp;group discussions, and sending reminder materials to their addresses a week later. The data&nbsp;were collected using the researcher developed preparedness questionnaire consisting of 58&nbsp;items with 4 subscales (communication, environmental, during and after earthquake period).&nbsp;Inferential analyses of data, including analysis of covariance was done by SPSS version 16.<br> <strong>Results:</strong> The findings showed that scores in all subscales of earthquake preparedness&nbsp;(communication, environment, during and after earthquake) significantly increased after&nbsp;educational intervention (P<0.05).<br> <strong>Conclusion:</strong> Preparedness programs for disaster risk reduction has a positive effect on the&nbsp;elders&rsquo; preparedness. Thus, similar multimodal preparedness programs should be used more&nbsp;frequently for this vulnerable community citizens.</p> Risk reduction, Disaster Relief planning, Earthquake, Elders 89 96 http://hdq.uswr.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-144-1&slc_lang=fa&sid=1 Kian Nourozi No Department of Nursing, University of Social Welfare & Rehabilitation Sciences,Tehran, Iran. Elmnaz Saeli saely5742@yahoo.com Yes Department of Geriatric Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran. Hamidreza Khankeh hamid.khankeh@ki.se No Department of Nursing, University of Social Welfare & Rehabilitation Sciences,Tehran, Iran. Seyed Habibollah Kavari kavarih@gmail.com No Department of Rehabilitation, University of Social Welfare & Rehabilitation Sciences,Tehran, Iran. Pouria Rezasoltani p_rsoltani@yahoo.com No Department of IT, University of Social Welfare & Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Behrouz Fathi behrooz_f2011@yahoo.com No Dr Sajedi Hadishahr Hospital, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.