The relationship between social support and sense of humor on life expectancy in the elderly Yazd

Introduction and Research on the issues of the elderly is of great concern in the world today especially in Iran with its growing number of old people. The objectives of the research are to find out whether there is any relationship between social support and sense of humor on the one hand and life expectancy on the other hand among Yazd old people. This descriptive-correlational study was carried out on 100 available elders (male and female) in Yazd. Philips social support questionnaires, Thorson & Powel multidimensional sense of humor scale and Snyder’s life expectancy question are were used to assess the relationship between variables. Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, Regression and T-test were used to analyze the data. The results indicate a significance relationship between social support and life expectancy. They also show a significance relationship between sense of humor and life expectancy. Regression analysis showed that two variable of social support and sense of humor can be predicted for life expectancy of elderly. Also, the results showed that men and women participating in the study in terms of humor and life expectancy is significantly different, that is, for the sense of humor, men more than women, and the life expectancy of women is higher than men. But, in terms of social support, there was no significant difference between the sexes. This study shows that the sense of human and social support can increase life expectancy among old people and accordingly improve their lives. Since the elderly population in Iran is important, it is suggested that more researches should be done to study the issue affecting the Iranian old people. Moreover, the government and people should try to support this part of the society.