Weaving a social support network of a long-term care institution for the elderly a social networking study

Introduction: Old age is a typical life stage in which many people are likely to be vulnerable whether for biological reasons or functional, familiar, social and emotional ones which may cause not only functional impairment but also lack of both self-care conditions and enough resources for their own survival, which gives rise to exist a long-term care. Long-term care institutions for the elderly (LTCI) are sought to provide this care. Taking into account for the usual scarcity of LTCI resources, notably those non-profit organizations, several aiding mechanisms are adopted, sometimes informally established by the institutions social network. Objectives: the aims of the present work were to map a support social network of a non-profit LTCI by identifying their members, attributes, quantify the presence of social network clicks and examine their influence on the provision of support. Methods: the present investigation is descriptive and exploratory with both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The Social Network Analysis (SNA) is used to measure and visualize its indicators and sociograms, followed interpreting qualitative analysis of the results taken from the interviews with managers and collaborators of the LTCI as well as partners appointed by them, data categorization, content analysis and discussion with national and international papers. The Snowball method was used to find out its partners and collaborators from all types of support (voluntary service activities, food, clothes and money donations, leisure activities, hand-made products for funding, and publicity of events). Both UCINET® and NETDRAW® were used to characterize network indices and their attributes. Results: it was found that the LTCI directors were neither aware of its supportive network amplitude nor their types. The study showed that its network has 86 partners: 50 ordinary people (58,13 per cent ), 17 private companies (19,77 per cent ), 11 nongovernmental organizations (12,80 per cent ) and 8 public organizations (9,30 per cent ). They all provide material and instrumental means, do voluntary work, promote the LTCI, 9 organize events for gathering resources besides entertainment, and both emotional and spiritual support for the elderly people. The non-profit nature of the LTCI and the public attended were motivating factors for the delivery of aid. It was verified that the support network of the LTCI is also one of the components of the personal support network of the dwellers, besides contributing with actions that positively impact the well-being of the elderly