Association between mental health and social support of the elderly in the urban and rural community of Lishui city
- VernacularTitle:丽水市城乡社区老年人心理健康与社会支持的相关性比较
- Author:
Changyou ZENG
- Publication Type:Journal Article
- From:
Chinese Journal of Tissue Engineering Research
2006;10(22):174-176
- CountryChina
- Language:Chinese
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Abstract:
BACKGROUND: Mental health problem is directly correlated with the health and happiness of the elders, and to improve their health level has become a social problem. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the mental health and social support status of the elders in Lishui city. DESIGN: A sample investigation. SETTING: Lishui Center for Disease Prevention and Control.PARTICIPANTS: Totally 137 retirees or honored retirees above 55 years in a community in Liandu district and 136 people above 55 years in a village in Bihu township of Liandu district were taken as the urban and a rural samples respectively in September and October 2003. METHODS: The symptom checklist-90 (SCL-90) and social support rating scale (SSRS) were used. The questionnaires were dispatched, measured and collected by the local physicans in rural area and community cadres in urban area in household anonymously on the spot. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: ① Scores of SCL-90 and SSRS in both groups; ② Correlations between social support factors and mental health factors in the elders between urban and rural communities; ③ Comparison of the most common 10 symptoms in SCL-90 between urban and rural elders; ④ Comparison of SCL-90 scores among different age groups and between males and females.RESULTS: Totally 380 questionnaires were sent out, 273 effective ones were collected back, and the collected rate was 71.84%. ① The differences of factor scores in SCL-90 were all significant or markedly significant (P ＜ 0.05-0.01) except that of depression, and all the factor scores in both urban group and rural group were obviously lower than those of national norm (P ＜ 0.01). The differences of subjective support and utilization of support in social support status between the two groups were of marked significance (P ＜ 0.01), whereas the differences of objective support and total scores were not so obvious (P ＞ 0.05). ② The correlation ananlysis between social support and mental health factors in the rural group showed that the utilization of support had no significant correlation with factors of anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation and psychoticism, whereas the other three dimensions and other 10 factors showed significant or very significant correlation. The correlation ananlysis between social support and mental health factors in the urban group showed that there was no significant correlation of objective support with the symptoms of obsession-compulsion and psychoticism, as well as between the utilization of support and the symptom of obsession-compulsion,whereas other dimensions of support showed significant or very significant correlation with other factors. ③ The most common positive symptom with the highest incidence rate was high forgetfulness (79.4%) in the rural group and muscular ache (69.3%) in the rural group, respectively. ④ The scores of interpersonal sensitivity, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation and psychoticism were lower in the ≥70 years old group than in the ＜ 70 years old group (P ＜ 0.05-0.01); there were no significnat gender differences (P ＞ 0.05).CONCLUSION: The mental health of the elders in Lishui city is slightly better than that of national norm, and it is better in rural area than in urban area. But the existed mental problems should not be ignored. The mental health status is greatly and directly related with the factor of social support, so the major and important measure to improve the mental health of the elders is to better the environment of social support and take effective psychological interference.
