BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: One of the psychological characteristics decreased with age is self-concept. Self-concept is the mental image of every person. The self-concept of the elderly is also based on their experiences during life stages. The aim of this study was to determine the factors affecting the promotion of self-concept in the elderly and to discuss them.
METHODS: This review study was conducted through searching IranMedex Google Scholar, SID, PubMed and Scopus databases. In this research, the full-text studies published in English and Persian all over the world from 2008 to 2018 and focused on self-concept and elderly (in English and Persian) were investigated. After qualitative evaluation of studies, they were assessed based on relevance. Then, the best findings were chosen.
FINDINGS: The findings showed that the improvement of self-concept in the elderly was related to some factors such as:  body image, fitness and appearance, improvement of quality of life (QoL), improvement of self-esteem and memory review, low and moderate intensity aerobic training, high education, being married and having different roles in different social environments.
CONCLUSION: As people with low self-concept experience a sense of inadequacy and worthlessness, it is imperative that caregivers adopt self-concept strategies appropriate to each elderly in order to improve the QoL in the elderly.