Journal of

Introduction and purpose: The present study was conducted to comparatively investigate mental health and happiness among elderly living at home and nursing homes of Kermanshah City in 2016.

Materials and Methods:This is a cross-sectional and casual-comparative study. Two groups of elderly (living at home and at nursing home) were compared in term of mental health and happiness. Simple random sampling method was used to recruit 200 elderly living at home and nursing homes in the city of Kermanshah. Research data were collected through General Health Questionnaire and Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and t-test.

Findings: Findings showed that there was a significant difference between mental health and happiness of elderly living at home (P<0.01) and those residing at nursing home.  Furthermore, mental health and happiness were higher among elderly living at home compared to nursing home residents.

Conclusion: We found that mental health and happiness of elderly living at home is significantly higher than nursing home residents. It has been shown that nursing home residents experience higher mental disorders, unhappiness and depression more than elderly living at home.