Abstract
ObjectivesSocial support (SS) influences the elderly ability to cope with the losses of ageing process. This study was aimed at assessing SS among elderly users of a primary healthcare unit in a poor and violent area of Rio de Janeiro City, and at verifying its association with depression, self-perceived health (SPH), marital status and chronic illnesses.MethodsA cross-sectional study was performed based on a convenience sample of 180 individuals aged 60 years or older. SS was measured with part of the Brazilian version of Medical Outcomes Study's SS scale, and SPH and depression were assessed, respectively, through one question and the Brazilian version of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders. SS medians were calculated for the categories of SPH, depression, marital status and chronic illnesses variables, and differences were evaluated with the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests. Additionally, Pearson's chi-square test and logistic regression were employed to identify unadjusted and adjusted associations between SS and those variables.ResultsThe participant’s mean age was 73 years old, and level of education was 3 years of school education on average. They were predominantly females (73.3%), and non-married (55.0%). Among them, 74.4% perceived their SS as satisfactory, 55.0% perceived their health as good, 27.8% were diagnosed with major depression and 83.3% had hypertension. Especially for those depressed and with bad SPH, the medians of SS measure were much lower than for others, reaching an unsatisfactory level. Moreover, controlling for other factors, non-depressed individuals were more likely (OR = 2.32) to have satisfactory SS.Conclusionin the violent and poor area explored in this research low SS is highly prevalent in the elderly. Depressed individuals are more likely to have low SS and this condition should be investigated in depressed elderly. The reduced scale is useful for low education individuals.
Highlights
Social networks enable individuals to meet their basic emotional needs for social integration, improving their self-esteem and intimacy with other individuals, through an interactive process of social support (SS) [1]
The concept of social support, in turn, includes the structure and function appropriateness of the social network, but, above all, the degree of an individual’s satisfaction with the support he/she benefits from others
Social support has a strong impact in older individual’s health and may be crucial in later life, representing a risk factor for many diseases and for mortality, comparable to other well-established risk factors. This has been demonstrated recently in a systematic review and meta-analysis performed by Holt-Lunstad et al in order to determine the extent to which social relationships influence mortality risk and which aspects of them are most predictive of mortality
Summary
Social networks enable individuals to meet their basic emotional needs for social integration, improving their self-esteem and intimacy with other individuals, through an interactive process of social support (SS) [1]. The difference between network and SS is that the first refers to an individual’s set of relationships, whereas the second focuses on the quality of these interactions [2]. Social support has a strong impact in older individual’s health and may be crucial in later life, representing a risk factor for many diseases and for mortality, comparable to other well-established risk factors. This has been demonstrated recently in a systematic review and meta-analysis performed by Holt-Lunstad et al in order to determine the extent to which social relationships influence mortality risk and which aspects of them are most predictive of mortality. Complex measures of SS were more predictive of the risk of death than simple evaluations such as marital status [6]
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