Solidão em idosos

: percepção em função da rede social

Abstract

This essay aims to reflect about old people perception about their own loneliness, in the scope of their social network. The main objectives of the case study are the understanding of the composition of the social network of a certain sample of old people, to acknowledge their own perception of loneliness and perceive how the perception of loneliness and the social environment relate to each other. To accomplish the objectives above, it was performed a study in Braga city in which 300 old people participated, having ages between the 65 and 93 years old, meaning an average of 76,51 years old. It is a quantitative study that works in a descriptive, correlational and transversal manner. There were used, a social-demographic characterization e two adjusted scales “Scale of Support Social Network” (adaptation of Lubben, 1998) and the “Scale of Loneliness” (adaptation of Paúl, Fonseca, Ribeiro & Teles, 2006). As per the study outputs, the results show the existence of significative relationships between both perception of loneliness and the social network, meaning that, the bigger the social network, the smaller is the perception of loneliness. It was also concluded the existence of statistically important differences between the social network, the loneliness and some social-demographic variables obtained in the sample of this essay.

Date of Award	8 Nov 2011
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	António Manuel Fonseca (Supervisor)