The Role of Cognitive Failures, Alexithymia and Cognitive Flexibility in Predicting the Social Health of Elderly

The emphasis of the World Health Organization on the importance of social health as well as physical health, has caused social health to become a common concern among sociologists and social planners in every society. The present study was conducted to determine the role of cognitive failures, alexithymia and cognitive flexibility in predicting the social health of the elderly.

The conducting method was a descriptive and correlative study. The statistical population of this study included all the male elderly over-60-years-old of Ardabil in 2017. From among them, 118 persons were selected as the statistical sample using the convenience sampling. For data collection, the cognitive failures scale, alexithymia scale, cognitive flexibility scale and social health scale were used. Research data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression methods by employing SPSS 23 statistical software.

According to the results, a significant relationship was observed between cognitive failures (r=-0.47), alexithymia (r=-0.51) and cognitive flexibility (r=0.41) with social health in the elderly (p<0.05). Multiple regression analysis showed that cognitive failures -0.35, alexithymia -0.39 and cognitive flexibility 0.25 significantly predict social health of the elderly (p<0.05).

It can be concluded that cognitive failures, alexithymia and cognitive flexibility are considered as variables associated with the social health in the elderly and have the capacity to predict it.