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Background: The population in the world is growing older which calls for effective preventive and health-promoting interventions in order to help elderly maintain a good quality of life. It is up to the decision-makers to choose which interventions to implement. However, many health promotion interventions often miss to report information that is relevant for a decision-maker to know. The aim of this study was to identify factors important for decision-making in the existing health promotion literature in the Nordic countries.

Method: This study made use of the MRC guidelines to identify eight criteria (Context, Content, Theory application, Target population, Efficacy and Effectiveness, Cost-Effectiveness, Feasibility studies and Experiences of Participants) relevant for the decision-making process. Information on each criterion was gathered from eleven identified preventive and health-promoting interventions, selected from PubMed, that met the eligibility criteria.

Results: The extent to which the factors have been reported have implications on the existing knowledge-base for decisions on health promotion interventions. Only one study reported on all eight identified criteria relevant for decision-making, while more than half of the studies missed information on theory application, cost-effectiveness, feasibility and experiences of participants.

Conclusion: This study is the first to try to compare health promotion interventions for old people in the Nordic countries. Despite the rather small number of studies analysed, it provides some groundwork for further research and a deeper comparison between health promotion interventions targeting old people and their usefulness for a decision-maker.