The purpose of this study was to identify the factors influencing IADL of the elderly in order to develop nursing interventions to improve IADL. The subjects of this study were 167 elderly person over the age of 60, living in a rural city in Korea. The data were collected by interview and a self-report questionnaire, during the period from March, 1999 to August, 1999. The instruments for this study were the scale of Locus of Control by Wallstone et al. (1978), 10 point visual analogue scale for the perceived health status: the importance of health: the perceived importance of exercise; the perceived need of exercise; the intent of participation in an exercise program, the Health Promoting Behavior Scale by Walker et al (1987), the IADL scale based on Lawton & Brody(1971), the emotion of exercise, and the Perceived Benefit of Exercise developed by Kim, Heeja( 1994). The Cronbach's alpha of these scales was .66 ∼ .97. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent samples t test, Pearson's correlation coefficients, and stepwise multiple regression. The results of this study were as follows: 1. The mean score of IADL of eldery was 2.42±1.67. The IADL score for doing house keeping was the highest, followed by the IADL score for shopping, using the phone, taking medications, doing the laundry, and ambulating. 2. There were significant IADL differences in related to sex, job, education, living with children, present illness, age, and the income of the elderly. Among cognitive perceptual factors of the Health Promotion Model by Render (1987), the perceived internal control of health, the health promoting behavior of the eldery, the intent of participation in an exercise program, the perceived benefit of exercise, the emotion of exercise were significantly positively correlated with the scores of the IADL of the elderly. 3. Stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed that the most powerful predictor of the IADL score was the perceived benefit of exercise. A combination of the perceived benefit of exercise, age and the income accounted for 25.5% of the variance of IADL in the elderly. From the results of this study, we concluded the following: On developing the nursing intervention for improving IADL of rural eldery, cognitive perceptual factors as well as demographic factors of the elderly will be considered. The results have implications for nursing administrators and nursing educators with regard to developing health promotion strategies related to independence of elderly people, community health, and social policy.