Social support and health-related quality of life in elderly people covered by the Welfare organization of Kerman city

The concept of active aging is suggested by the World Health Organization in which emphasizes on healthy quality of life and its determinants. Social support is one of these determinants, therefore this study intents to investigate the relation of these two concepts among elderly people covered by Kerman welfare organization. This cross sectional study was performed with 100 elderly people. Two questionnaires named Lipad's elderly quality of life and Norbeck's social support were employed for measuring variables. Data were analyzed by SPSS 17 software. The findings of the current study revealed the higher quality of life scores in all aspects of quality of life in elderly males, while female's scores in social support were higher than males. The results showed that various types of social support are associated with quality of life. Furthermore structural support was a stronger predictor for total quality of life. This study showed that social support can be regarded as one of the main social determinants affecting quality of life among elderly people. The welfare organization as one of the trustees for supporting the elderly can play an important role in promoting social relations and improving quality of life among old people.