Investigating the Elder's Social Health and Its Related Factors: a Case Study of Azarshahr City

Introduction and elderly has been addressed as the last period of human life by the scholars of humanities and biology. The main purpose of this study was investigating the factors related to the elders’ social health in Azarshahr city. The current study is cross-sectional and descriptive which was conducted by the participation of 312 elders; 65 years and above from Azarshahr city using stratified random sampling method. The research tool was Keyes's Social well-being Questionnaire consisted of 23 questions (4-points Likert type) ranging from “Always” to “Never”. Also, the degree of elders’ social support was assessed using Sarason’s Social Support Questionnaire. One-dimensional tables and independent t test and ANOVA were used to describe and analysis of the data by SPSS software. 56.5 percent of respondents had social health at an acceptable and 43.5 percent had a low level of social health. There is significant relationship between age (p=0.022), social support (p=0.002), and socio-economic status (p<0.001) with social health in elderly. But the relationship between gender (p=0.28), and marital status (p=0.67) with the elders’ social health was not significant. Males and females have similar degree of social health. It is almost similar for married and single elders. Increase in age showed decrease in health and increase in social support showed increase in health. So, elders with high social support are healthier than the others. Finally, the relationship between socio-economic status and social health is direct; indicating that the elders with high level of economic and social status have higher health than the others.