Applying socioemotional selectivity theory to nursing home recreation: Services which promote residents' and family/friends' affective well-being

The psychosocial well-being of older adults living in nursing homes and the people they are close to is of increasing concern. Nursing home residents demonstrate high rates of loneliness and depression while close family members report feelings of role ambiguity and stress. These issues will become increasingly important as the number of residents rises dramatically. To partially address residents' psychosocial needs, nursing homes that receive federal funds are required by law to provide meaningful and appropriate recreation services. A primary strategy that recreation providers use to meet residents' psychosocial needs is to promote new relationships among them through group programs. While this approach may facilitate some supportive relationships, it also promotes meaningless and detrimental ones as well. Moreover, it omits relationships that are most important to residents-- those with close family members and old friends. The liberal use of resident-centered groups is consistent with activity theory, the predominant theoretical framework for recreation services in nursing homes. This theory suggests that high rates of interaction promote affective well-being. Activity theory, however, has been strongly criticized as empirically weak and simplistic. A newer and more empirically robust theory of social interaction, socioemotional selectivity, appears to provide a stronger framework for promoting psychosocial well-being in residents. It suggests that, as time left to cultivate relationships ebbs, affective well-being is associated with contact with important people, not simply frequent interactions. This study examined the relevance of socioemotional selectivity theory to recreation services in nursing homes and explored ways in which it could be used to address the psychosocial needs of residents and their close family/friends. There were four major findings. First, in accordance with socioemotional selectivity theory, residents tended to be very close to family and old friends. While Fung and Carstensen (2004) suggested that very close relationships serve two functions, they provide emotional social support and are emotionally meaningful, in this study they were closely associated with emotional social support. Second, at recreation groups, residents generally did not interact with people from whom they received emotional social support. Therefore, justifying the provision of programs to groups of residents as a way to reduce feelings of loneliness and depression may be erroneous. Furthermore, in accordance with socioemotional selectivity theory, residents and family friends indicated that desirable forms of interaction excluded other residents. Third, one variable associated with socioemotional selectivity theory, satisfaction with social contacts in groups, appeared to be very influential in predicting group attendance and a factor comprised of activities that were social in nature or involved outings. Fourth, family/friends reported greater freedom to interact with nursing home residents than previously reported by Friedemann and colleagues (1997).