The Effect Mechanism Of Socioeconomic Status On Loneliness In The Elderly

Objective:To understand the general situation of loneliness,perceived social support and sleep quality among the elderly in Shanxi Province.Exploring the relationship between socioeconomic status and loneliness and to verify the mediating mechanism of perceived social support and sleep quality between socioeconomic status and loneliness in the elderly.Enabling the elderly to live healthier lives.Methods:This study was carried out in 11 prefecture-level cities in Shanxi Province from July to September 2019.A multi-stage random sampling method was used to select 3,266 elderly people aged 60 and above.The uniformly trained investigators interviewed the elderly face-to-face to recycle data.Using self-made basic information questionnaire,UCLA(University of California at Los Angeles)loneliness scale,Perceived Social Support Scale(PSSS)scale and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index(PSQI)scale as the survey tools,recovered a total of 3250 valid questionnaires.Used Harman’s one-factor test to see whether there was common method bias in the research;The characteristics of perceived social support,sleep quality and loneliness of the elderly in Shanxi Province were analyzed by t test,variance analysis and Welch test;The relationship between the four main variables was analyzed using Pearson correlation.To analyze the relationship between perceived social support,sleep quality and loneliness of the elderly,we used multiple linear regression;Bootstrap program was used to test the mediating mechanism of socioeconomic status and loneliness.Results:1.In this study,the loneliness score of the elderly was(39.17±9.99),and 66.9% of the elderly showed moderate or above loneliness.The tests showed that there were statistical differences in the loneliness scores of different living areas,educational level,monthly income,marital status,empty nest situation,relationship with children,relationship with spouse,community satisfaction,regular meals,and drinking status(P<0.05).The score of perceived social support was(66.15±13.68),there were statistically significant differences in the perceived social support scores of different age,education level,monthly income,marital status,empty-nest situation,relationship with children,relationship with spouse,community satisfaction,whether three meals a day,and drinking status(P<0.05).The Pittsburgh sleep quality index was(4.83±3.16),The elderly had different sleep quality scores across demographic variables(P<0.05).2.Pairwise correlation between the total scores of socioeconomic status,perceived social support,sleep quality,and loneliness(P<0.05).Perceived social support of the elderly was significantly related to loneliness(b=-0.490,P<0.001),and the relationship between sleep quality and loneliness was significant too(b=0.166,P<0.001).In addition,the relationship between perceived social support and sleep quality in the elderly was also significant(b=-0.136,P<0.001).3.The fitting results of the multiple mediation model are RMSEA=0.047,CFI=0.994,TLI=0.971,The results meet the adaptation criteria which means the model can be adopted.Bootstrap test results showed that perceived social support and sleep quality had mediating effects in socioeconomic status and loneliness.The effect size and proportion were-0.051(32.08%),-0.025(15.72%),and 0.002(1.26%),respectively.Conclusions:The elderly generally have varying degrees of loneliness in Shanxi Province,with moderate perceived social support levels and poor sleep quality.In the case of controlling for other factors,the relationship between the degree of loneliness,the level of perceived social support and the quality of sleep in the elderly was significant.Socioeconomic status has an important impact on loneliness among the elderly.Educational level and monthly income level are significantly related to loneliness,as well as perceived social support and sleep quality.The elderly with low level of perceived social support had a higher degree of loneliness;the elderly with poor sleep quality had a higher degree of loneliness;Perceived social support and sleep quality are mediating factors of socioeconomic status and loneliness of the elderly,and also interact in a chain.It is suggested that by increasing perceived social support and strengthening health management,elderly people with lower socioeconomic status may be able to effectively alleviate their loneliness.