The association of social support structure, health status, and disability in the elderly living home [Evde yaşayan yaşlilarda sosyal destek yapisi, sa?lik durumu ve yeti?yi?ti?mi?i?li?şki?si?]

Background and Aim: Loss of social support is strongly associated with health. Changing in frequency and quality of social support structure occurs in the elderly much more than other age groups. This descriptive study examines the social support structure in relation to health and disability status in the elderly: Materials and methods: The study group is a probability sample of 245 community-dwelling elders aged 65 and over. Social Atom Scale (SAS), Rivermead Mobility Index (RMI) and Brief Disability Questionaire (BDQ) were used to assess social support structure and disability. Kruskal Wallis test, student t test and Mann Whitney U test were used for the associations between social support structure and health and disability. Results: Being women, and widoved were associated with social support structure, whilst age, education, living alone, having social security were not. In addition, self-rated health, having chronic conditions and mobility disability were statistically significant in predicting low social support structure score, whilst physical-social disability and being in hospital bed were not. Conclusion: In conclusion, it is suggested that nurses and other health professionals should pay more attention to the social support system on health impact among elderly do well to focus attention on health impact of social support structure in elderly.