The Relation between the Life Meaningfulness and the Level of Perceived Social Support among Elderly People Living in Nursing Homes in Isfahan

Objectives: The present study aimed to examine the life meaningfulness among the elderly people livingin nursing homes of Isfahan, Iran based on their perceived social support from 3 sources of family,friends, and significant others. Methods & Materials: In this research, a total of 120 older people (68 men and 52 women) were selectedfrom the nursing homes of Isfahan through convenience sampling method, and their data were analyzedusing Zimet et al. perceived social support and the life meaningfulness questionnaires (1988). Results: The results of stepwise and multiple regression analyses showed that 28.2% of individual differencesregarding the life meaningfulness in the elderly people were related to the personal differencesin their perceived social support (from family, friends, and significant others), in which the family andother significant persons had the most prominent effect on explaining the changes and in predicting themeaningfulness of life among the elderly. This correlation was statistically significant (P=0.001). Basedon analysis of variance, the explained regression model is also significant and linear because the valueof F test for determining the effect of independent variables on life meaningfulness of the older peopleequals 15.353, which is significant (P=0.001). The significance of regression coefficients shows that thefamily significantly predicts the life meaningfulness of the elderly people. This means that 19.8% of varianceis common between family and life meaningfulness of older people. This figure increases to 27.1%by adding significant others to the equation. Conclusion: The results showed that the older people who receive stronger social support also have significantlystronger feelings of meaning in their lives. In other words, the feeling of meaning in the life issignificantly related to perceived strong social support. In a way, an important part of individual differencesin meaningfulness of the older people's lives is related to their different perceived social support. Therefore, today with regard to social changes and busy life of children and accordingly their low relationwith old parents, it is anticipated that the low perceived support from the family of the older people(which is the most important predicting factor of life meaningfulness among other factors of perceivedsocial support) will affect the meaningfulness of their lives. Considering what older people told in theirinterviews with regard to the role of the famil