Social Support And Psychological Disturbance Among The Elderly In Benue North-West Senatorial Zone, Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

The adverse effect of psychological disturbances among the elderly cannot be overemphasized as it poses a global public health challenge. Thus, the study examined the relationship between social support and psychological disturbance among the elderly in Benue North-West Senatorial Zone. The study adopted the correlation design and used the simple random sampling to sample two Local Government Areas in the zone, while the purposive sampling technique was used to sample 120 senior citizens; 91 (75.8%) males and 29 (24.2%) females with the mean age of 73 years with 54 to 92 years age range. The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) were used to collect data. Four hypotheses were formulated and tested using standard multiple regression analysis. The first finding shows that there was a significant negative relationship between family social support and psychological disturbance β = -.294, t=-2.007; P<.05. The second finding revealed that there was no significant relationship between friend’s social support and psychological disturbance β=.081, t=.784; p>.05. There was no significant relationship between significant others social support and psychological disturbance β=-.048, t =-334; p>.05. On the whole, social support significantly predicts psychological disturbance among elderly in Benue North-West Senatorial Zone R = .309, R² = .095, F (3,101) = 3.543; p<.05. It was concluded that social support determines the psychological disturbance of the elderly. It was recommended that mental health professionals and elderly caregivers to provide psychological protection to the elderly and use social support (family) programs in their treatment as a non-pharmacological method to prevent psychological disturbances such as anxiety, depression and stress to enhance the elderly people’s.