NURSING

Nursing



The Identification of Social, Physical and Psychological Factors that Influence Health and Well-Being of a Group

Introduction

Factors that influence the health and well-being of individuals are classified into three different types such as social, physical and psychological. However, the extent of influence of these three factors varies from person to person, community to the community, and situation to situation. This assignment will attempt to identify the influence of these three factors on older adults, who are of 65 years old or above. In this connection, the assignment will also discuss and recommend the best possible mode of communications available for therapeutic purposes, along with describing the social care provision available in UK for the people of this age group.

The topic has been selected for the study, because depression is a fatal disease and affected older people are at greater risk of developing other diseases, as well as lose the hope to live in this world. Secondly, this assignment will help healthcare professionals to better handle the older adults and convince them to stay healthy without spending thousands of Pounds for the same. Though, the factors are classified into three different types (i.e. social, physical and psychological). Thus, this study will individually review each factor and their aspects that influence the health and well-being of the people.

Factors Influencing the Health

Cultural Factor

Among the social factor, culture is first influencing factor in the health and well being of older people. Researches in the past shows, that older people from Scandinavian countries are healthier as compared to residents of other countries (Berman and Furst, 2010, pp. 2-13). However, it has been found that, among the societal influencing factors, culture is the most influential for health and well being of older people (Chogahara, Cousins & Wankel 2008, pp. 1-7). Societies where older people are more dependent were less happy and healthy (for instance, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka etc). However, in Europe and other western nations where older people are relatively more independent spend relatively healthier life.

Social Factor

The second fundamental societal factor that influences the health and well being of older people are the socioeconomic status. Many researches had documented that people who have greater socioeconomic status are more well and healthy as compare to those having poor social / economic or both status. The marital status and marital life of older people are also crucial as well as an influencing factor in their health and well being. The death of spouse at the mentioned age group, regular conflicts with spouse are the two factors that have been identified as an element that can produce a negative effect on the client group.

Biological & Psychological Factors

Finally, the events that an older adult has gone experienced throughout his/her life are also significant in determining his/her health and well being. Bad experiences throughout the life can adversely affect / damage the psychological as well as physical health of an individual. On the contrary, people who had excellent or mixed (i.e. pleasurable and poor) experiences throughout their life are relatively ...