The Relationship Between Mental Health and Physical Health of Elderly Living in Nursing Homes: The Mediating Role of Feelings of Guilt and Loneliness

Today, paying attention to the elderly and their condition is one of the important and significant issues. Among the important factors influential in this field, paying attention to physical health and its related factors seems highly important. Therefore, this research was conducted with the aim of investigating the relationship between mental health and physical health in the elderly resident of nursing homes with the mediating role of feelings of guilt and loneliness. This was a descriptive study of structural equations modeling (SEM) type. The statistical population of the present study included 3687 people living in nursing homes located in Damghan and Isfahan in 2022, among whom 121 people were selected as the final sample using simple random sampling. Used to collect the research data were Russell et al.’s loneliness, Gokler and Jones' feelings of guilt, Najarian and Davoudi's mental health, and Laali et al.'s physical health scales. The data were analyzed using SEM in Smart PLS-3 software. The results illustrated that mental health has a positive relationship with physical health and this relationship is significantly and reversely mediated by two variables of loneliness and feelings of guilt. According to the obtained results, it is suggested to pay special attention to mental health, loneliness and feelings of guilt among the elderly. The results of this research can be useful for nursing home managers to create better conditions and to maintain people as well as possible.