ABSTRACT

Objective: Social support is an important social factor that affects the maintenance of health and recovery from disease in the social environment and relationships of the older adults. The study aims to systematically review the health-related social support study and assessment tools that have been used for community-dwelling older adults. Methods: From January 2012 to December 2022, we searched for the studies related to social support assessment tools by using the PubMed, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Research Information Sharing Service (RISS) and Korean Studies Information Service System (KISS) databases. The search terms were ‘social support assessment’ OR ‘social support questionnaire’ OR ‘social support scale’, ‘older adults’, ‘community dwelling’ AND ‘health’. Results: A total of 3,897 studies were extracted, and finally 24 studies and 14 social support assessment tools were selected according to the inclusion criteria. Among the social support concepts, the eight assessment tools (57%) were included to measure perceived social support. Conclusion: It is expected that the results of this study could be used to develop a standardized assessment tool that can measure the health-related social support assessment tools for community-dwelling older adults.