association between perceived social support and mental health status among older adults

Introduction: the elderly need social support to reduce their physical and mental disabilities. perceived social support is one of the effective factors in the lifestyle of older adults. objective: this study aimed to determine the association between perceived social support and mental health status among older adults. materials and methods: this research is a cross-sectional analytical study. the study data were collected using a perceived social support (pss) scale and general health questionnaire-12 (ghq-12). a total of 302 eligible older adults were selected through a random sampling method from primary health centers in the north, south, east, west, and center of tehran. the inclusion criteria were those community-dwelling older adults aged ≥60 years and with normal cognitive abilities. the collected data were analyzed using t test, anova, the pearson correlation, and multiple linear regressions. results: the mean±sd age of older adults was 70.01±6.29 years. their mean±sd scores of the pss and ghq-12 were 130.95±16.05 and 7.29±5.55, respectively. the results showed no significant relationship between demographic variables and pss. there was a significant inverse correlation between the pss score and the ghq-12 score (p= 0.01, r= -0.878). the pss explained 0.66 of the total variances of “positively phrased items” of ghq-12 (adjusted r2= 0.66) and 0.76 of the total variances of “negatively phrased items” of ghq-12 (adjusted r2= 0.76). conclusion: our findings showed that the pss and mental health are at a desirable level in this study, and the pss is not affected by demographic variables. the pss is a promoting factor for mental health status among older adults.