Association between social relationship profiles and depressive-anxiety symptoms among residents in nursing homes: A latent profile analysis

BACKGROUND: Older adults in nursing homes generally face psychological adaptation problems such as depression and anxiety. This study aimed to identify social relationship profiles among nursing home residents and explore their associations with depression and anxiety. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted between June and October 2023 among 1108 older residents from 42 nursing homes in Fujian Province, China. Social relationships were assessed using the Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) and the Lubben Social Network Scale-6 (LSNS-6). Depressive-anxiety symptoms were measured using the Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Form and the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), respectively. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was performed to identify distinct social relationship profiles, and ANOVA/ANCOVA were used to examine differences in depression and anxiety across profiles. RESULTS: The LPA analysis identified six distinct social relationship profiles. The "Low social support/low social network group" (24.7%) was the most prevalent, showing significantly higher levels of depression and anxiety compared to the others. The "Moderate social support/moderate friend network group" (20.9%) demonstrated an intermediate and balanced social relationship characteristic. When compared to the "Moderate-low social support/high friend network group" (8.1%) and the "Moderate-high social support/low friend network group" (18.1%), despite these two groups scoring higher or above-average in specific dimensions of social support or friend network, they still showed higher levels of depression than the "High social support/high social network group" (15.1%) and the "High social support/super high social network group" (13.1%). CONCLUSIONS: Social relationship profiles among nursing home residents are heterogeneous and significantly associated with depressive-anxiety symptoms.