RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Influence of Providing and Receiving Social Support on Older Adults' Well-being
Nasibeh Zanjari1, Yadollah Abolfathi Momtaz1, 2, *, Seyed Hossein Mohaqeqi Kamal3, Mehdi Basakha3, Sina Ahmadi3
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2022Volume: 18
E-location ID: e174501792112241
Publisher ID: e174501792112241
DOI: 10.2174/17450179-v18-e2112241
Article History:
Received Date: 26/5/2021Revision Received Date: 15/9/2021
Acceptance Date: 28/10/2021
Electronic publication date: 03/02/2022
Collection year: 2022
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Introduction:
Social support is a leading contributing factor for older adults' well-being. The present study aimed to compare the impact of two-way (providing and receiving) social support on the well-being of Iranian older adults.
Methods:
The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 1280 community-dwelling older adults in Tehran, Iran, 2020. The researcher used the clustered sampling method and the 2-way Social Support Scale (SSS) to collect samples and measure social support, respectively. The well-being was measured by the self-reported World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5). Bivariate and hierarchical linear regression analyses were performed to compare the effects of social support aspects on well-being. Data were analyzed using SPSS 20.0. A significance level of p≤0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results:
The mean age of the respondents was 70.90 (SD=8.07), and about 70% of the sample was married. The mean scores of taking and providing social support were 20.70 ±7.52 and 17.71 ±7.82, respectively. The hierarchical regression analysis revealed that providing social support is significantly associated with the well-being of older adults beyond and over receiving social support and possible contributing factors (∆F=30.25; ∆R2= 0.39, p<0.05).
Conclusion:
The results showed that providing social support is more important than receiving it. Older adults should participate in social activities to provide social support.
