The Effect of Social Support on Self-Rated Health in a Rural Elderly Population: With Depression Level as a Mediating Variable

To explore the relationship between social support, depression level, and self-rated health in rural elderly groups, this paper, based on the 2020 Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey data, first, used the Ordinal Logit regression model and propensity score matching to assess the relationship between social support and self-rated health in rural elderly groups. Secondly, stepwise regression analysis was used to test the role of depression level in the relationship between emotional social support, material social support, and self-assessed health. Lastly, the magnitude of the mediating effect was further tested using KHB decomposition. The results showed that both emotional and material social support had a significant positive effect on the self-assessed health of the rural elderly. Depression level mediated the relationship between emotional social support, material social support, and self-rated health of rural elderly groups, and the type and size of the mediating effect were related to the type of social support. Based on these findings, this paper makes several recommendations.