Loneliness of The Elderly: The Role of Communication Skills, Social Support and Functional Disability

Attention and concentration on loneliness feeling predictor variables in the elderly are an introduction to successful treatment of loneliness feeling and decreasing its serious consequences. The purpose of this study was the role of communication skills, social support and disability in predicting loneliness feeling of the elderly. This is descriptive-correlational study. The statistical population of this study were all elderly in Tehran at 2016. In this study, 400 elderly who living at home were selected by random cluster sampling from different areas of Tehran city. The revised UCLA loneliness scale (Russell, 1980), Interpersonal Communication Skills (queendom, 2004) Social support questionnaire (Winefield, Winefield, & Tiggemann, 1992), and Stanford Health assessment questionnaire 8-item disability index were used to collect information. In order to analyze obtained data Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Multiple Regression method were employed. Statistical results indicated the negative significant Correlations between communication skills and social support with loneliness feeling and a positive significant correlation between disability with loneliness feeling. Multivariate regression analysis showed that 48 percent of the variance in loneliness feeling of the elderly is explained by the communication skills, social support and disability. The results of this study had significant implications about the importance of communication skills, social support and disability variables in the loneliness feeling of the elderly.