The study, led by Hamed Nouri of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences together with colleagues from Shahid Beheshti and Gonabad Universities of Medical Sciences, set out to address one of the most persistent problems in institutional elder care. Older adults frequently move into nursing homes because of physical frailty, cognitive decline, or the absence of caregivers able to support them at home. Whatever the reason, the transition almost always involves a degree of separation from the family network that once structured daily life. That severing of ties, the researchers note, can quietly erode mental health, feeding loneliness, hopelessness, and the slow accumulation of depressive symptoms that often go undetected in busy institutional settings.

To test whether routine video calls could counteract this process, the team designed a quasi-experimental study conducted in 2022 across nursing homes in Tabriz, a major city in northwestern Iran. Using cluster sampling, they enrolled 61 older adults and randomly assigned them to two groups. Twenty-nine participants in the intervention group received weekly video calls with their family members for two months, delivered alongside the normal schedule of in-person visits. The remaining 32 participants in the control group continued with routine visits only, receiving no structured video communication. The design allowed the researchers to isolate the specific contribution of the video-call program from the baseline care environment that all residents shared.

The outcome measures were two of the most widely used instruments in geriatric research. Depression was assessed with the Geriatric Depression Scale, a validated screening tool designed specifically for older populations and, in its shortened 15-item form, efficient enough for repeated administration in clinical settings. Perceived social support was measured with the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, or MSPSS, which captures how supported individuals feel across distinct domains, including family, friends, and significant others. Both instruments were administered at baseline and again after the two-month intervention period, and the data were analyzed in SPSS version 26 with statistical significance set at a p value below 0.05.

The results were striking in both magnitude and consistency. After two months, the mean depression score in the intervention group was significantly lower than in the control group, with an effect size of 0.87 and a p value of 0.001. In behavioral research, an effect size approaching 0.9 is considered large, suggesting that the video-call intervention produced a substantial difference rather than a marginal statistical blip. In practical terms, residents who spoke with their families on a screen each week reported meaningfully fewer depressive symptoms than those who relied on routine contact alone.

The intervention also reshaped how supported the residents felt. Perceived social support scores rose significantly in the video-call group relative to controls, with an effect size of 0.67 and a p value of 0.01. This is a moderate-to-large effect, and it points to a plausible psychological mechanism underlying the improvement in mood. Perceived social support, the subjective sense of being cared for and connected to others, is one of the best-established protective factors against depression across the lifespan. By giving residents a reliable, recurring channel of family contact, the intervention appears to have strengthened that psychological buffer, and the mood benefits followed.

The technical simplicity of the intervention is part of its appeal. Unlike complex telemedicine platforms that require specialized equipment, training, and ongoing technical support, the program relied on ordinary video calls, delivered weekly, with the residents’ own family members. The effect was measured over a short period of just two months, meaning the benefits emerged quickly. For nursing home administrators, this suggests that a video-communication program could be introduced with minimal infrastructure and at low cost, layered onto existing visiting arrangements rather than replacing them. The study’s authors conclude that video communication can be used in nursing homes to enhance the short-term well-being of residents.

As with any study, the design carries limitations worth keeping in view. The trial was quasi-experimental rather than a fully randomized controlled trial, which is why the authors report it was not registered in a clinical trials registry. Although participants were randomly assigned to the two groups, cluster sampling within nursing homes introduces the possibility of site-level differences that a larger, multi-center randomized design would better control. The sample of 61 participants is modest, and the two-month follow-up captures short-term effects only; whether the mood benefits persist, accumulate, or fade once the calls stop remains an open question. The findings were also drawn from a specific cultural context in Iran, where family ties and visiting norms may shape both the feasibility and the emotional weight of video contact, so replication in other settings will be important.

The ethical framework of the study was carefully documented. The research received approval from the Ethics Committee of Gonabad University of Medical Sciences under ethics code IR.GMU.REC.1401.039, and written informed consent was obtained from all participants, who were fully informed about the study’s objectives and the research team before taking part. The researchers also completed the necessary permissions and coordination with the directors and management of the nursing homes involved. The work received no specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors, and the authors declare no competing interests.

For a rapidly aging world population, the implications extend well beyond Tabriz. Depression in later life is associated with worse physical health outcomes, higher rates of institutionalization, elevated health care costs, and increased mortality, yet it remains underdiagnosed and undertreated in care facilities. Interventions that are cheap, scalable, and acceptable to older adults are urgently needed. This study suggests that the humble video call, already woven into the daily lives of younger generations, may be one of the most accessible tools available. As families disperse across cities, countries, and continents, scheduled screens may become a standard prescription of modern elder care, bridging the distance that separates aging parents from the children and grandchildren who love them.

Subject of Research: Effect of family video calls on depression and perceived social support in nursing home residents

Article Title: Impact of family video calls on depression and perceived social support among older adults residing in nursing home residents in Tabriz

Article References: Nouri, H., Rajaee, M., BasiriMoghadam, M., & Sadeghmoghadam, L. (2026). Impact of family video calls on depression and perceived social support among older adults residing in nursing home residents in Tabriz. BMC Geriatrics. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-026-08282-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12877-026-08282-0

Keywords: nursing homes, older adults, depression, social support, video calls, telemedicine, geriatrics, mental health, family communication, Iran, Impact, family

The study drew on data from 319 participants aged 65 and older who were enrolled in a community-based health screening program in Japan. This population matters because the overwhelming majority of older people worldwide live at home rather than in institutional care, and their day-to-day well-being hinges on informal networks of relatives, neighbors, and friends. To capture the dynamics of these networks, the team used two validated instruments. Social support was assessed with the Social Support Giving and Receiving Scale for the Elderly at Home, which measures support as a bidirectional phenomenon, acknowledging that older adults are not merely passive recipients of care but active contributors to the people around them. Self-disclosure was evaluated with the Self-Disclosure Questionnaire, a self-assessment tool developed specifically for research with community-dwelling older adults in Japan.

Rather than treating social support as a single continuous score, the researchers employed cluster analysis, a statistical technique that groups individuals according to shared patterns across multiple variables. This approach revealed three distinct profiles of social support among the participants. The first cluster was characterized by low receiving combined with high giving—older adults who actively helped others but received comparatively little in return. The second cluster showed both low receiving and low giving, representing people whose support relationships had thinned out in both directions. The third and largest-profile category comprised participants with balanced or high receiving, whose networks delivered support that met or exceeded what they provided. The existence of these distinct patterns underscores that social support in later life is not a uniform resource but a set of different relational configurations with potentially different consequences for health.

The demographic and functional differences between these clusters proved telling. Participants in the giving-oriented cluster—younger within the study range and marked by higher functional capability and more extensive social networks—were, in effect, the helpers of their communities. Their capacity to provide support reflected physical and social resources that many of their peers no longer possessed. By contrast, individuals in the receiving-oriented cluster tended to be older, with lower functional capability, consistent with the intuitive picture that as physical capacity declines, the balance of support shifts from giving toward receiving. This gradient illustrates a fundamental asymmetry in aging: the same person may move across these clusters over time as health and social circumstances change, and the transition can be abrupt when illness or functional loss strikes.

The centerpiece of the analysis, however, was the relationship between self-disclosure and social support. Using regression models that adjusted for relevant covariates, the researchers found that greater self-disclosure to family members was significantly associated with higher levels of both giving and receiving social support, with the association reaching a p-value below .001—a threshold indicating an extremely low probability that the finding arose by chance. In practical terms, older adults who opened up to their families about their inner lives were embedded in richer, more reciprocal webs of mutual assistance. The finding aligns with long-standing social psychological theory, from Altman and Taylor’s social penetration model, which describes how relationships deepen through progressively more personal disclosure, to exchange-based accounts showing that disclosure tends to be reciprocated, drawing conversation partners into closer, more supportive bonds.

Intriguingly, the pattern changed when the researchers examined disclosure to friends and acquaintances. Here, the association was confined to giving support, reaching statistical significance at p = .023. Older adults who shared more of themselves with friends and broader acquaintances were more likely to give help to others, but this outward-facing openness did not translate into greater receipt of support in return. One interpretation is that friendships in later life, while valuable and often rich in emotional rewards, are structurally different from family bonds. Friends may be similarly aged and similarly capable, and therefore less positioned—or less obligated—to deliver instrumental care when needs arise. Families, by contrast, typically span generations and carry normative expectations of caregiving, so that disclosure within them activates both emotional closeness and practical assistance.

The study’s implications extend to public health and community care policy, particularly in rapidly aging societies such as Japan, which has built a community-based integrated care system premised on informal support networks surrounding each older resident. If self-disclosure within families functions as a gateway to reciprocal support, then interventions that encourage open communication—family conversations, counseling approaches, or even structured programs that teach and normalize the sharing of personal concerns—could strengthen the informal safety net that formal services increasingly depend upon. The finding that family disclosure predicts both directions of support also suggests a possible lever for addressing the low-receiving, low-giving cluster, the most isolated profile identified in the study, in which older adults neither contribute to nor draw from a support network.

As with any cross-sectional study, important caveats apply. The design captures a single moment in time, so it cannot establish whether self-disclosure causes richer support or whether supportive relationships simply create more opportunities for disclosure; most likely, the two reinforce each other in an ongoing loop. The sample comprised participants in a community health screening program, a group that may be more health-conscious and better connected than the general older population, raising questions about generalizability that the authors themselves acknowledge. Moreover, the data are not publicly available because they contain information that could compromise participant privacy, which limits independent reanalysis. The research was approved by the Sapporo Medical University Ethical Review Board, and all participants provided written informed consent after the procedure was explained. Funding came from the Health, Labour and Welfare Sciences Research Grants under grant number 23GB2001.

Future research, the authors suggest, should test these relationships longitudinally and, more ambitiously, develop interventions designed to promote self-disclosure among older adults. If the findings hold up under such scrutiny, the practical message is strikingly simple: encouraging older people to talk openly with their families about their feelings, worries, and daily experiences may do more than relieve loneliness in the moment. It may build and sustain the two-way currents of help—given and received—that keep people healthier, more connected, and more secure as they age. In an era when societies worldwide are scrambling to care for unprecedented numbers of older residents, one of the most powerful tools may not be a new service or technology, but a conversation at the kitchen table.

Subject of Research: The association between self-disclosure and the giving and receiving of social support among community-dwelling older adults

Article Title: Role of Self-Disclosure in Receiving and Giving Social Support Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study

Article References: Role of Self-Disclosure in Receiving and Giving Social Support Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12126-026-09671-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s12126-026-09671-x

Keywords: social support, self-disclosure, older adults, aging in place, family communication, community-dwelling seniors, cluster analysis, functional capability, social networks, well-being, cross-sectional study, gerontology