• Perceived social support and related factors in middle-aged women in Shiraz
  • Elahe Sedigh,1,* Shiva Pirsabzy,2 Zeinab Sadat Moosavifard,3
    1. Bachelor of Nursing student, Young and Elite Researchers Club, Department of Nursing, Bandar Abbas Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bandar Abbas, Iran
    2. Bachelor of Nursing student, Young and Elite Researchers Club, Department of Nursing, Bandar Abbas Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bandar Abbas, Iran
    3. Faculty of Nursing , Department of Nursing, Bandar Abbas Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bandar Abbas, Iran


  • Introduction: Social support is a source of psycho-social support that is obtained from social relationships with different social networks of family, friends and others. Social support is related to important mental and psychological indicators such as quality of life, depression and satisfaction with people's lives; But the factors related to it in middle-aged women have received less attention. Therefore, the present study investigated demographic factors related to perceived social support in middle-aged women in Shiraz.
  • Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 256 middle-aged women of Shiraz city, who were selected by a multi-stage method, participated. The criteria for entering the study was to be between the ages of 45 and 65 and willing to participate in the study. To measure social support, the multidimensional scale of perceived social support was used. Its reliability was found to be 0.88 in the present study. SPSS22 software, T-tests, ANOVA and linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data.
  • Results: The average age of the participants was 51.34 ± 2.1, 89% were married and 45.1% had a diploma or higher. The average score of perceived social support was 21.23±2.71. Among the studied demographic factors, only income adequacy had a significant relationship with it (P<0.001) so that in people with higher income adequacy, perceived social support was also higher. Linear regression analysis showed that income adequacy predicts 15.3% of social support in middle-aged women studied.
  • Conclusion: Women with low income receive less social support, which needs to be paid attention to by social policymakers.
  • Keywords: Middle age, women, perceived social support, income adequacy