Social network types and functional dependency in older adults in Mexico

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Sergio Flores-Hernández¹  Patricia Espinosa-Alarcón²  Ricardo Pérez-Cuevas³  Svetlana Vladislavovna Doubova (Dubova)³ 

[1] Coordinación de Investigación en Salud, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico;Unidad de Investigación Educativa, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico;Unidad de Investigación Epidemiológica y en Servicios de Salud Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico;

关键词: Social Network;    Functional Dependency;    Community Group;    Community Participation;    Frequent Contact;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-10-104

 received in 2009-09-04, accepted in 2010-02-27,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundSocial networks play a key role in caring for older adults. A better understanding of the characteristics of different social networks types (TSNs) in a given community provides useful information for designing policies to care for this age group. Therefore this study has three objectives: 1) To derive the TSNs among older adults affiliated with the Mexican Institute of Social Security; 2) To describe the main characteristics of the older adults in each TSN, including the instrumental and economic support they receive and their satisfaction with the network; 3) To determine the association between functional dependency and the type of social network.MethodsSecondary data analysis of the 2006 Survey of Autonomy and Dependency (N = 3,348). The TSNs were identified using the structural approach and cluster analysis. The association between functional dependency and the TSNs was evaluated with Poisson regression with robust variance analysis in which socio-demographic characteristics, lifestyle and medical history covariates were included.ResultsWe identified five TSNs: diverse with community participation (12.1%), diverse without community participation (44.3%); widowed (32.0%); nonfriends-restricted (7.6%); nonfamily-restricted (4.0%). Older adults belonging to widowed and restricted networks showed a higher proportion of dependency, negative self-rated health and depression. Older adults with functional dependency more likely belonged to a widowed network (adjusted prevalence ratio 1.5; 95%CI: 1.1-2.1).ConclusionThe derived TSNs were similar to those described in developed countries. However, we identified the existence of a diverse network without community participation and a widowed network that have not been previously described. These TSNs and restricted networks represent a potential unmet need of social security affiliates.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Doubova (Dubova) et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.