Friendship: The meaning and contribution towards happiness and health of elder people

Authors

  • Made Diah Lestari Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Udayana, Indonesia
https://doi.org/10.24854/jpu61

Keywords:

older people, friendship, photovoice

Abstract

Activity theory has given an enormous perspective on ageing with the concept of successful ageing. The theory views older people as an active, productive, and sociable group. Social contact or participation is one of the indicators of an ageing-friendly community which has been declared by World Health Organization. Maintaining friendship is an example of social contact in older people. The pattern of friendship changes according to the abilities and needs in every stages of human development. The aim of the study is to find the pattern of friendship, the meaning of friendship, and friendship impact on physical and psychological healthiness in older people. The participants were 14 older people from 64 to 70 years old. The present study is a qualitative research using photovoice method. According to participatory and coding analysis, the study has found several themes which contributed to the pattern of friendship, namely the definition of who friends are and the duration of companionship. For the participants, friend is appreciated as someone who become part of their memory, someone who always serve openness, and someone who gets them away from loneliness. Friendship was seen as a type of relationship which is built by pure interest. Friendship activities that benefit the older people are getting together with friends, sharing experiences, finding solutions to the problems encountered, visiting friends, attending important events of friends, running hobby, and doing physical activity. The critical findings of the present study can be used for planning the management model of healthcare for the older people.

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Published

2017-06-01

How to Cite

Lestari, M. D. (2017). Friendship: The meaning and contribution towards happiness and health of elder people. Jurnal Psikologi Ulayat, 4(1), 59–82. https://doi.org/10.24854/jpu61

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2017)

Section

Original Research

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Copyright (c) 2017 Made Diah Lestari

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.