Vilken inverkan har socialt nätverk på äldres hälsa? En litteraturöversikt om socialt nätverk och äldres hälsa
An individual's social capital consists largely of the social networks that may consist offamily, friends and acquaintances. The social network is of great significance on olderpeople's physical and mental health. Aim: The overall purpose is to examine the knowledgeof social network and the health of the elderly. Method: Litterature review, using threedifferent databases, CINAHL, PubMed and Scoupus for searching of articles, with differentcombinations of keywords. Results: Different types of social networks have both positive andnegative effects on health. Lack of participation in society and in different social contexts isassociated with poorer self-rated health and depression. Good social networks and goodrelationships with friends proved to affect well-being and health in a positive way. However,it was found that good relationships with family and children were not affected in the samemanner. Discussion/Conclusion: The findings that emerged from this study confirm otherprevious studies done by other researchers in the field. Elderly who were involved innetworks with higher social capital had better health. It is important to prevent social isolationof older people in the ongoing public health efforts and that the older people will feelinvolved and have influence in society which is one of the most fundamental prerequisites forhealth. One should also pay attention to how the various networks are built up, which affectsthe health of the elderly and their well-being in different ways.