Social Relationships and the Health of Older Adults: An Examination of Social Connectedness and Perceived Social Support (original) (raw)
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And Social Network with Self-Rated Health Status Among Older Adults : A Population-Based Study
2013
We should be grateful if you would consider the revised version of our article entitled "Gender differences in the association of perceived social support and social network with self-rated health status among older adults: a population-based study" for publication in the BMC Geriatrics. This is original research that is not presently under consideration for publication elsewhere. It is free of conflict of interest and was conducted applying the highest ethical principles on human subjects. We thank for reviewers' comments and we have responded to all of them.
Social Support and Mortality in an Elderly Community POPULATION1
American Journal of Epidemiology, 1982
Social support and mortality in an elderly community population. Am J Epidemiol 1982;115:684-94. A community sample made In the fall of 1972 In Durham County, North Carolina, and that consisted of 331 persons 65 years of age and older was assessed for adequacy of social support along three parameters: roles and available attachments, perceived social support, and frequency of social interaction. This approach to the assessment of social support complements previous approaches to the measurement of social support which have not compared the various components of the construct. Mortality status, the outcome variable, was determined 30 months after the initial assessment The crude relative risks of mortality were 1.96 for Impaired roles and available attachments, 3.86 for Impaired perceived social support, and 2.72 for Impaired frequency of social interaction. Ten potential confounding variables-age, sex, race, economic status, physical health status, self-care capacity, depressive symptoms, cognitive functioning, stressful life events, and cigarette smoking-were controlled using binary linear regression analysis. The estimates of relative mortality risk were 2.04, 3.40, and 1.88, respectively, for Impaired roles and available attachments, impaired perceived social support, and Impaired frequency of social Interaction when the control variables were included in a regression model. Therefore, these three parameters of soclai support significantly predicted 30-month mortality In both crude and controlled analyses in a community sample of older adults.
Social Support and Self-Reported Health Status of Older Adults in the United States
American Journal of Public Health, 2009
Objectives. We determined whether a representative national probability sample of US community-dwelling older adults who reported less social support also reported poorer general health status, which is a robust predictor of prospective mortality among elders.Methods. We analyzed 2 subsamples generated via random sampling with replacement from the full analytic sample of adults aged 60 years and older in the 1999–2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (n = 3476). We built multinomial logit models with the first analytic subsample (n = 1732). Then we tested the final models on the second subsample (n = 1744) to assess the differences in odds of reporting poor, fair, or good versus very good or excellent health. We fit the cross-validated final models to the full analytic sample.Results. After we controlled for age, race, gender, and educational attainment, older persons across all analytic samples who reported that they needed more support also reported having poorer health compared with better health 2 times more often than did older persons who were satisfied with the support available to them (odds ratio [OR] = 2.4; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.7, 3.4; P < .001).Conclusions. In the United States, older persons' satisfaction with the emotional support available to them is associated with better self-reported health status.
American Journal of Community Psychology, 1989
The factor structure of positive and negative social ties was studied among 246 older adults who were either recently physically disabled, recently conjugally bereaved, or matched controls. Covariance structure analyses were carried out on a network measure to determine whether positive and negative social ties represent independent domains of social experience, and to assess the degree to which their structure is invariant across groups undergoing major loss transitions. Positive and negative social ties were found to be independent and there was substantial similarity in their factor structure across the three groups. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that, whereas positive social ties were related to psychological well-being, negative social ties were predictive of both psychological well-being and distress. These results demonstrate the importance of assessing both positive and negative ties in explaining the psychological adjustment of older adults.
Social connectedness and health amongst older adults
TASA Conference. December, 2005
Australia is experiencing a "structural ageing" of its population; by 2044 approximately 25% of adults will be aged 65 years and over, leading to a corresponding increase in need for aged health and community care provisions. Older adults have been shown to be more vulnerable to social isolation than the rest of the populace. Socially isolated older adults have more ill health and less well being than those who are socially connected. Social connection appears to provide a protective effect against ill health and mortality in the aged. It is likely that those who are socially connected will, therefore, have less need to access health and community care services than those who are socially isolated. Based on a qualitative study of older adults within a local Melbourne municipality, I argue that increasing social connectedness amongst the elderly could have important beneficial impacts, not only on health, but also on government budgetary requirements and service allocations and, at a social capital level, on all of society. I also argue that, to date, programs that promote social connectedness amongst older adults are limited in their ability to access those who are truly socially isolated.
The health-related functions of social support
Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 1981
Social support research has been hampered by a lack of clarity both in the definitions of social support and in the conceptualization of its effects on health outcomes. The present study compared social network size and three types of perceived social support—tangible, emotional, and informational —in relation to stressful life events, psychological symptoms and morale, and physical health status in a sample of 100 persons 45–64 years old. Social network size was empirically separable from, though correlated with, perceived social support and had a weaker overall relationship to outcomes than did support. Low tangible support and emotional support, in addition to certain life events, were independently related to depression and negative morale; informational support was associated with positive morale. Neither social support nor stressful life events were associated with physical health. It was concluded that social support research would benefit from attention to the multidimensionality of support and greater specificity in hypotheses about the relationship between types of support and adaptational outcomes.
The value of maintaining social connections for mental health in older people
Lancet Public Health, 2020
By 2050, it is estimated that about a fifth of the general population will be aged 65 years and older. 1 Social isolation and loneliness among young (18-40 years), middle-aged (41-64), and older adults (65 years and older) is thus a serious public health concern of our time because of its strong connection with cardiovascular, autoimmune, neurocognitive, and mental health problems. 2 The scientific literature has documented the bidirectional and complex relationship between psychological issues and social disconnectedness in the past 40 years. 3 Despite extensive work done to date on this topic, previous research has had several shortcomings. Limitations include preponderance of cross-sectional data that precludes causal inferences, use of single measure or single-item assessments of loneliness, absence of testing bidirectionality, and small sample sizes. In The Lancet Public Health, Ziggi Ivan Santini and colleagues 4 build on previous work by examining the bidirectional relations between depression or anxiety severity and social disconnectedness between 2005 and 2016, and the degree to which perceived isolation mediated those relationships. The authors tested these hypotheses in a large sample of 3005 community-dwelling adults aged 57 to 85 years in the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project using random-intercept cross-lagged panel modelling. 5 The analyses showed that social disconnectedness independently predicted depression and anxiety symptom severity (and vice versa). Additionally, self-perceived social isolation was found to mediate the link between social disconnectedness and depression and anxiety in both directions. For example, social disconnectedness predicted higher subsequent perceived isolation, which in turn predicted higher depression symptoms and anxiety symptoms (all p<0.0001). The random-intercept cross-lagged panel modelling approach, which adjusts for previous outcomes and between-person variation, permits the inference that these observed relations unfold within (as opposed to between) people, thus bringing us closer toward causal models. Moreover, the authors exemplified the best practices of longitudinal structural equation modelling by testing for measurement equivalence to verify that the latent constructs were assessed along the same scale at various timepoints (an often-neglected step). These findings can potentially inform public health and social policies. Brief evidence-based preventive interventions could plausibly be developed for older adults and implemented This is an Open Access article under the CC BY NC ND 4.0 license.