The Relationship Between Social Support and Sleep Quality with General Health in Residing Nursing House Elderly

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Abstract

Researchin the field ofissuesandproblems associated withagingtoimprove the qualityof life of thisgroup, is amajorconcern ofthetoday's world. Therefore, the present studywas conducted with aim toinvestigate the relationship betweensocial supportandquality of sleep with general healthofelderly people innursing homes.The research was descriptive correlational one.The study population included all of elderly men and women with more than sixty years old that live in nursing homes of Hamedan. The study samples consisted of100 elderly(50 malesand50females) that were selected byavailable samplingmethod ofItratnursing homesin Hamadan. General HealthQuestionnaire(Goldberg, 1979), sleep qualityPittsburgh(Boyce et al.,1989)andsocial support(Wax et al, 1986)was usedto collect thedata. The results of step by step multiple regression analysisshowed thatsocial supportand sleep qualitypredict the 16.4% and5.5% of general healthof the elderly (P>0.001).The findings of this study reaffirm the important role of social support in the elderly health. Thus it is recommended to psychologists and counselors that working inthisarea, to plan programs withrevolving aroundsocial protectionto improvethe health statusof the elderly.

Keywords