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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Social network typologies and mental health among older adults | | Author(s) | Katherine L Fiori, Toni C Antonucci, Kai S Cortina |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, vol 61B, no 1, January 2006 |
| Pages | pp P25-P32 |
| Source | http://www.geron.org |
| Keywords | Personal relationships ; Friends ; The Family ; Social contacts ; Informal care ; Well being ; Depression ; Cluster analysis ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | The authors test the robustness of previous social network research, and extend this work to determine whether support quality is one mechanism by which network types predict mental health. Participants included 1669 adults aged 60+ from the Americans Changing Lives study. Using cluster analysis, they found diverse, family and friend network types, which is consistent with Howard Litwin's 'Social network type and morale in old age' (2001). However, they found two types of restricted networks, rather than just one: a non-family network and a non-friends network. Depressive symptomatology was highest for individuals in the non-friends network, lowest for individuals in the diverse network. Positive support quality partially mediated the association between network type and depressive symptomatology. Results suggest that the absence of family in the context of friends is less detrimental than the absences of friends in the context of family, and that support quality is one mechanism through which network types affect mental health. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060314233 A |
| Classmark | DS: SX: SJ: TOA: P6: D:F:5HH: ENR: 3YB: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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