Mediation effect of parent-child social support on forgiveness and loneliness in elderly people

Objective To investigate the mediated moderation effect of parent-child social support on forgiveness and loneliness in elderly people.Methods With convenient sampling,400 urban and rural elderly residents aged ≥60 years were recruited from Ningbo municipality of Zhejiang province and Changsha municipality of Hunan province and surveyed with Trait Forgiveness Scale (TFS),a questionnaire on acceptance of social support from adult children,and Loneliness Scale of University of California-Berkeley (LS-UCLA) during March 2015.Results For the 382 participants with eligible response,the average score of loneliness was 2.14±0.43,with a median of 2.5,suggesting a relatively low loneliness level (t=5.14,P<0.05).Whether having a spouse showed a major impact on the loneliness (t=-0.58,P<0.01),while gender,residential region,education,and income showed no significant influence on the loneliness (t=-0.49,P>0.05).Parent-child social support and its four dimensions (emotional,material,service,and information support) were positively correlated with forgiveness (r=0.28 and 0.36,0.09,0.19,0.23,P<0.05 for all) and reversely correlated with loneliness (r=-0.33 and-0.42,-0.15,-0.19,-0.28;P<0.05 for all);the forgiveness was reversely related to loneliness (r=-0.41;P<0.05).Fitting results of structural equation model demonstrated that parent-child support played a mediating role on the relationship between forgiveness and loneliness among the elderly (χ²/df=1.93,normed fit indexNFI=0.96,relative fit indexRFI=0.92,incremental fit indexIFI=0.98,Tucker-Lewis indexTLI=0.96,comparative fit indexCFI=0.98,root mean square error of approximationRMESA=0.07),accounting for 15.6% of total mediating effect.Conclusion Forgiveness has a direct effect on loneliness and plays its role partly through the medication of parent-child social support among the elderly people.