Perceived social support and health-related quality of life in older adults who have multiple chronic conditions and their caregivers: a dyadic analysis

Health-Related Quality of Life in Older Adults: Its Association with Health Literacy, Self-Efficacy, Social Support, and Health-Promoting Behavior

“…Older individuals with more comorbidities presented worse mental and physical HRQOL in our study, which is consistent with the results of previous studies [59,66,67]. Older adults with comorbidities are more prone to developing physical and psychological limitations.…”

“…Our findings support a positive relationship between emotional-informational support and HRQOL as described in former studies, indicating that social support is more strongly related to a higher HRQOL in older adults [18,21,22,28,34], older individuals with stoma [17], and older individuals with chronic disease [2,27,35,38,59]. The use of peer support programs (volunteer visits with clients) enforcing emotional-informational support significantly increased the levels of well-being among highly vulnerable, low-income older adults [23].…”

“…The use of peer support programs (volunteer visits with clients) enforcing emotional-informational support significantly increased the levels of well-being among highly vulnerable, low-income older adults [23]. In older adults without impaired mobility who are not institutionalized and who live in a community, the main sources of perceived social support were family members and significant others [22,[59][60][61] and friendship networks [62]. Strong family support was associated with better mental and physical HRQOL in older patients with multiple chronic conditions [59], and a strong friendship network was positively associated with physical HRQOL [59,63].…”

“…In older adults without impaired mobility who are not institutionalized and who live in a community, the main sources of perceived social support were family members and significant others [22,[59][60][61] and friendship networks [62]. Strong family support was associated with better mental and physical HRQOL in older patients with multiple chronic conditions [59], and a strong friendship network was positively associated with physical HRQOL [59,63]. The protective and nursing role of the family toward their older members in need is typical of collectivist cultures, such as in South Korea, in which individuals maintain strong relationships with their families for life [64].…”

Gender differences in the longitudinal association between husbands' and wives' depressive symptoms among Korean older adults: the moderating effects of the spousal relationship

“…However, if a couple is in a good relationship, a spouse can play the role of offering emotional resources. The intimate spousal relationship helps to satisfy an individual's basic needs, providing ways to overcome stressors through psychological support [55][56][57][58]. Therefore, even if a spouse has depressive symptoms, an individual who maintains a good relationship with them is not likely to fall into depression.…”