Dukungan Sosial dan Kebahagiaan Lansia Penghuni Panti Sosial di Medan

Abstract. The happiness of the residents of nursing homes becomes important with the presence of various accompanying life problems. This research aims to see the relationship between social support and elderly happiness. It involves 40 respondents with good hearing of both sexes aged >/= 60 years, free of diagnosis of depression, dementia or neurological or psychopathological disorders. The sample is selected by a purposive technique. Happiness measurement with a questionnaire that refers to the indicator of Happiness by Seligman (2002) which consists of positive emotions or positive activities. The indicator is divided into three parts; addressed to the past (grateful and forgiving), the future (faith, believe, hope, and optimistic) and now (gratuity and pleasure). As to the social support I adapt the scale from The MOS Social Support Survey by Sherbourne and Stewart (1991) with four dimensions of functional support: emotional/informational, tangible, affectionate, and positive social interactions. The result confirms that there is a significant positive relation between social support and happiness. The implication of this research is the importance of social support for the elderly to increase happiness in social institutions. Keywords: happiness, institutionalized older people, social support, the elderly