Introduction: Today increased life expectancy is not merely a sign of development, but life quality of the elderly and the role of social factors in its promotion should be also taken into account. This study is intended to investigate the role of social support on the quality of life of the elderly in the city of Mashhad.
Method: In this study a survey method was adopted and the data were collected by questionnaire. Accordingly, the quality of life was measured by F36 standard questionnaire and social support was assessed by Philips standard questionnaire. The population consisted of all senior citizens over 65 years in mashhad and a sample size of 265 subjects was selected. A combination of stratified cluster samplings method were used for this purpose and data were selected from 9 neighborhoods in the city of Mashhad in the year 2014. Moreover, data analysis was conducted using SPSS 16 software, regression tests, Pearson correlation and mean comparison.
Results: The mean score of quality of life for the elderly was 52.64 with the subscale of social functioning scoring higher than other subscales. Also, the average total score for social support was 49.65 with the subscale of emotional support (mean score= 64.87) obtaining the highest score. The results of mean comparison indicated a significant association between two variables of quality of life and gender so that male elderly had a significantly higher quality of life compared to their female counterpart (P =0.000).
Also, there was a significant difference only in physical dimension of quality of life (P=0.000) with men displaying better physical quality of life compared to women. There was no significant relationship between general social support and gender. Among the dimensions of social support, there was a significant difference between men and women in terms of information support (P=0.000). Finally, social support and its dimensions had a significant effect on the quality of life of the elderly so that they explained 35% of variation in the quality of life. In this regard, emotional support had the greatest effect on the life quality of the elderly.
Conclusion: Emotional support had the dramatic effect on the quality of life of older adults, but it should be noted that because of special social, economic and physical status, they also require other types of support such as instrumental and informational support