Levels of perceived social support and anxiety symptoms in the elderly in old age homes: A studyin Chennai city

The objectives of the study were to assess the existence of a correlation between levels of perceived social support and severity of anxiety symptoms in 73 elderly inmates, 33 males and 40 females, above the age of 65, of old age homes in Chennai. The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988) and Geriatric Anxiety Scale - 10 (Mueller et al., 2015) were administered to measure social support and anxiety. Descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation, significance tests, and regression analysis were used to analyse the data. Results revealed that the levels of perceived social support and severity of anxiety symptoms were negatively/inversely correlated (r = -.395, p = <.001). Significant gender differences in the levels of perceived social support were found, but gender differences in these verity of anxiety symptoms were not noticed. Based on the present findings, it may be concluded that the more an elderly individual perceives themselves to have good social support, the less intense anxiety symptoms they experience.