Interaction Between Depression And Social Support On Ageism Among Nursing Home Residents

Objective:To investigate the actuality of ageism of the residents in nursing home;To explore the relationship between ageism and socio-demographic factors,physical health and functional status,mental and psychological health,social support.On the premise of controlling for confounding factors,the influence of the interaction between depression and social support on ageism was studied in order to provide theoretical basis for reducing the level of ageism among nursing home residentsMethods:In this study,a cross-sectional study design was adopted.With the purposive sampling,349 residents were selected from 21 nursing homes in Jinan from March to June in 201 9.Using self-designed general information questionnaire,we collected the demographic sociological characteristics and health related information of the elderly,and the general information of the nursing home.Cognitive status,ageism,depression,anxiety,activities of daily living,social support,and physical activity levels of the elderly was assessed using standardized scale.SPSS22.0 and STATA14.0 were used to analyze the data.The statistical methods included:descriptive statistics,independent sample t test,analysis of variance,Spearman correlation analysis,and multilevel mixed-effects generalized linear model.Results:1.The elderly residents in nursing home have a poor level of ageism.The average ageism is 3.17±0.64,the subjective level is 2.99±0.88.and the objective level is 3.30± 0.61.67.9%of the nursing home residents have self-care deficits.49.3%of them have low levels of physical activity,37.2%of them have moderate to severe cognitive impairment,8.9%of the them have anxiety symptoms,and 33.2%of the them have depression,53%of the them have poor social supports.The age,education level,depression,activity of daily life,social support,and length of stay in the nursing home are related to ageism,and the differences are statistically significant(P<0.05).2.After controlling for age,gender,education,marital status,length of staying in nursing home,number of chronic diseases,activity of daily life,cognitive status,anxiety symptoms,and institutional factors,the interaction of depression and social support has a significant impact on the overall score and objective level of ageism(P<0.05).For the elderly with depressive symptoms,the increase in the ageism score with the increase of social support score is significantly smaller than that of the elderly without depressive symptoms,and there is a similar trend at the subjective level of ageism,but the difference is not statistically significant.In particular,on the objective level of ageism,even if the social support of the elderly with depressive symptoms improves,their ageism will not improveDiscussion:1.There is ageism in nursing home residents,and the situation is not optimistic.The level of ageism is more severe than that of the general elderly group.Staff in nursing home should pay attention to identifying the risk factors of ageism,focusing on the elderly who are older,have lower education level,have depression symptoms,lack ability of daily life,poor social support,and stay in institutions for a short time.2.The interaction of depression and social support affects the ageism of the nursing home residents.When developing intervention strategies for the elderly with ageism,providing social support only may not work well for the elderly with depression,and it is necessary to co-intervene both depression and social support.