Investigating the Meaning of the Elderly's Social Health

Increasing life expectancy and decreasing the level of fertility have led to an increase in the number of old people in the population. This qualitative research was conducted with the aim of describing and how to investigate the meaning of social health among the elderly and with the methodology of interpretive ethnography. The data were collected by in-depth interviews. The population included the elderly (aged over 60 years old) in Kermanshah and 14 people were selected as the sample, based on the theoretical saturation of the interview. For analyzing the data, the interviews were coded and three following core themes were identified: the representation of voluntary presence (including the subsidiary themes of continuing interpersonal communications, continuing family network, and the representation of the quality of inner and spiritual issues), the representation of the quality of physical health (including the subsidiary themes of continuing function, not feeling pain, accepting the responsibility of self-care, and controlling life affairs), and the representation of the quality of spiritual health (including the subsidiary themes of regret avoidance, the fear of separation, and keeping role); so, understanding the elderly's social health can help improve their health, and incomplete information and the lack of knowledge about old age can lead to irreparable damages.