Social Networks and Residential Status in Community-Dwelling Older Adults With Schizophrenia: Compensation by...

To address the paucity of data on the structure and content of social networks of older adults with schizophrenia (OAS).

The OAS group comprised 249 persons aged 55 and older with early-onset schizophrenia living in supportive housing (SS; n = 151), independently (SI; n = 70), or with family (SF; n = 28). The community comparison (CC) group comprised 113 individuals. Social network analysis was used. Multinomial logistic regression with p ≤0.001 and p ≤0.05 was used for overall and pairwise comparisons, respectively.

Each OAS subgroup had more total, nonkin, and formal linkages than the CC group. The SS and SI subgroups had fewer kin linkages than the CC group. The CC group had more confidants than the SS subgroup, more reliable linkages than the SS and SI subgroups, and more sustenance linkages than each of the OAS subgroups. Nearly everyone in the CC, SI, and SF subgroups had a confidant, a reliable contact, and a sustenance linkage; 33% of the SS subgroup had no confidants. The SS subgroup displayed more psychiatric symptoms than the SI and SF subgroups. There were no differences in loneliness or relationship satisfaction between the CC and the schizophrenia subgroups.

Networks were expressed differentially across residential arrangements and differences may reflect dissimilarities in psychiatric functioning. OAS generally had ample levels of companionship and emotional and instrumental support, often comparable to their age peers. Whereas social networks typically decline at illness onset and may be predominantly family-focused, later life may be a time of network reconfiguration and reconstitution.