TY - JOUR AU - Siti Zuhaida Hussein, AU - Norazilah Khalip, AU - Rosnita Hashim, PY - 2022/04/04 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - The Relationship between Functional Status and Social, Emotional and Family Loneliness among Older Adults in Pontian JF - Malaysian Journal of Medical Research (MJMR) JA - Malaysian Journal of Medical Research VL - 6 IS - 2 SE - DO - 10.31674/mjmr.2022.v06i02.005 UR - https://ejournal.lucp.net/index.php/mjmr/article/view/1551 SP - 28-35 AB - <p>Life at mature age is perceived to be very challenging and mostly influenced by the ageing process and negative changes that increase the risk of functional abilities. The most enormous thing to achieve is to live independently with less help from others to achieve an optimum quality of life. Methods: This is a community-based cross-sectional survey conducted among 414 community-dwelling older adults in Pontian District aiming to identify the functional status and examine the relationship between functional status and three types of loneliness. The Pfeffer Functional Activities Questionnaire was used to measure the level of functional status. Loneliness was measured with the short form of the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults. The Statistical Package for Social Science Ver.26 for Windows was used to analyse all of the data.The results of this study show that the mean (+SD) age is 71.4 (+2.0). The majority of respondents perceived good health status and no deterioration in functional status. 8.2% of respondents experienced deterioration in functional status. Of these, 32.6% of respondents experienced social loneliness, 39.9% experienced emotional loneliness, and 9.2% experienced family loneliness. The results also revealed a significant relationship between functional status and social loneliness (p = 0.02). In conclusion, the majority of respondents are independent enough to perform functional activities, and less than half of them have experienced social, emotional, or family loneliness. Social loneliness was linked to a decline in functional ability in older adults. This research could aid in the care of older adults who live independently and freely in the community.</p> ER -