Iranian Journal of Rehabilitation Research in Nursing

Introduction: Problematic issues associated with comorbidity of aging and cardiovascular disorders can adversely affect the ability of these elders in their everyday life management and enjoyment from social support. The aim of this study was to determine the ability of elderly cardiac patients in receiving their needed social support. Method: this was a descriptive – analytical study. Participants were 250 elders with cardiovascular disease in Bushehr Heart Center, selected through nonrandom convenience sampling method. Data collection tool was a self-administered social support questionnaire that developed by the researchers. Content and construct validity determination was conducted and confirmed using subject matter experts and exploratory factor analysis, and internal consistency for reliability testing through coefficient alpha which calculated as.85. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 18 and descriptive statistics, independent t-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation coefficients. Results: The mean age of participants was 66.58±7.43. The abilities of elders in receiving needed social support estimated as follows: %0.4 Weak, %20.8 average, %62.4 good and%16.4 very good. There was a significant correlation between educational levels and global ability scores and sub scores in areas of receiving information from family and friends, managing risk factors, Functional independence and satisfaction of goals achievement satisfaction (p<0.05).There weren’t any significant correlation between other socio-demographic variables (gender, age, income and marital status) and social support scores (p>0.05). Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that the majority of elderly cardiac patients had good abilities in receiving social support. In order to achieve higher levels of this important ability, effective interventions to strengthen their social networks is highly recommended