Social Support Among Older South Africans During COVID-19

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 had a significant impact on older South Africans’ experience of social support. This cross-sectional study explored possible risk and protective factors of social support among community-dwelling older adults (N = 118). Social support pre- to during COVID-19 decreased significantly; however, overall social support was greater for those who were older, had more face-to-face contact, and had a greater number of friends or relatives. From a socio-ecological perspective on resilience, greater opportunities for older adults to create connections, such as classes or community events, are recommended to facilitate desired social supports, which in turn supports greater health and well-being.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• older adults
• social support
• South Africa
• gerontological socialservices

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the welfare organization for the permission to conduct the study and for facilitating access to older participants who volunteered their time to respond to the web-based questionnaire.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ethics approval

The study received ethics approval from the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Pretoria, South Africa (Ref.: HUM003/0321). The research was undertaken with the appropriate informed consent of all participants.