The Association Between Social Support and the Quality of Life of Older Adults in China: The Mediating Effect of Loneliness

ABSTRACT

Background

Quality of life, social support, and loneliness are common problems among older adults in China , but the relationships among these issues have not been clearly identified.

Objectives

The present study aimed to determine the relationships among Quality of life, social support, and loneliness.

Methods

A total of 560 older adults were randomly selected , the social support rating scale (SSRS), University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) loneliness scale, and Short-Form 12 (SF-12) were employed to measure their degree of social support, level of loneliness, and quality of life.

Results

The average physical component summary (PCS) score was 49.97±16.33, and the average mental component summary (MCS) score was 47.26±11.49. Loneliness plays a partial mediating role between social support and quality of life.

Conclusion

Loneliness and a lack of social support will affect the quality of life of the older adults. Thus, we need to urgently strengthen the care and support for the older adults and alleviate the loneliness of the older adults in the community.

KEYWORDS:

• Aged
• quality of life
• loneliness
• mediating effect

Disclosure Statement

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

Author’s Contributions

Nannan Jiang and Yanli Zhang contributed to the study conception and design. All authors collected the data and performed the data analysis. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the data and the completion of figures and tables. All authors contributed to the drafting of the article and final approval of the submitted version.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Bengbu Medical College. All participants gave their informed consent to participate.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Bengbu Medical University Science and Technology Project Humanities and Social Sciences Key Project [2023byzd144sk] and Bengbu Social Science Planning Project [BB18C007].