A Study to Examine the Relationship between Social Support and Perception of Being Institutionalized among the Elderly Aged 65 Years and Above Who Are in Institutions in Bulawayo Urban, Zimbabwe

Abstract

Policies on the elderly in Zimbabwe are based on social networks and social capital in which the care of the elderly rests with the adult children and other relatives including the community. It is argued that social networks and social capital are informal and the weakness in these informal types of social support is that they are difficult to maintain in cases of urbanization, migration and socio-economic hardships. The study sought to examine the relationship between social support and the perception of being institutionalized among the elderly aged 65 years and above who were in institutions in Bulawayo urban. A descriptive quantitative cross-sectional correlational survey method was used. A simple random sampling method was used to recruit respondents. The sample size in this study was 81 respondents. Data was collected using the interview schedule. Analysis was done using the Statistical Package Social for Sciences (SPSS) package, descriptive and inferential statistics. The Pearson's correlation coefficient showed the relationship between social support and perception of being institutionalized as follows; r = 0.181, p = 0.107. This shows that there is no relationship between social support and perception of being institutionalized among the elderly aged 65 years and above who are in institutions in Bulawayo urban, Zimbabwe. KeywordsElderly, Social Support, Perception, Institutionalized BackgroundAging is inevitable. The elderly's ability to carry out activities of daily living becomes difficult and deteriorates forcing them to be cared for in an institution.With the epidemiological transition, the rate of institutionalization of older adults has increased in various countries, and this process is occurring in Zimbabwe as well [1]. It is projected that with longevity more elderly people will be institutionalized.Perception of being institutionalized is a socially constructed way of thinking about institutionalization. Positive perception of being institutionalized is when the elderly accept that ageing has physiological, psychological and social determinants such that institutionalization is necessary at some point in time [2].Negative perception of being institutionalized is often based on negative attitudes and stereotypes that ageing is negative and being in an institution is worse.Institutionalization during old age therefore requires tremendous adaptabilityIn a study conducted in India, 50% of the respondents felt neglected by family, 32% had no contact with the outside world, and 68% felt that the attitude of people towards the elderly was that of neglect [4]. A related study further found that 48% of the institutionalised elderly felt sad because of poverty, this observation being made in Zimbabwe [5]. In Zimbabwe, the general perception is that the elderly in institutions are foreigners who are usually destitute with no one to care for them [6]. However, due to socio-economic and demographic changes more and more elderly people now accept that they can no longer depend on the adult childre...

Moving from the Margins: Towards an Inclusive Urban Representation of Older People in Zimbabwe’s Policy Discourse

“…There is increasing research on an older person's health and well-being and the intersections with urban space. A cross-sectional survey by [52] on social support and institutionalisation in Bulawayo found most older people were at risk and experiencing poor mental health within care homes. Research by [53] on older people in an urban district in Harare, found that older people were excluded from certain activities in urban areas such as key information, education, and communication campaigns for HIV and AIDS because they are incorrectly regarded as sexually inactive and not susceptible to contracting sexually transmitted infections.…”