Introduction
The social health in the elderly is one of the most important topics in aging that has received less attention [3, 4]. The number of elderly people that living alone is increasing, and this threatens their social health [5]. According to Keyes, social health includes the challenges of life experiences [14]. The difference in the life experiences of the elderly is due to their different encounters with economic, social, cultural, health and other problems. The life experience of some elderly is with satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The intimacy attitudes have an important role in the life experiences of the elderly [20]. The reduction of intimacy attitudes in the elderly can cause communication problems, communication avoidance, and their isolation [21, 23]. The intimacy attitudes of the elderly influence on their positive feelings [24]. The positive feelings towards spouse in the elderly has a great effective in increasing their flexibility and relationship [29]. Therefore, the present study answers this question whether life experiences and intimacy attitudes with mediating role of positive feelings towards spouse can predict the social health in elderly? 

Methods and Materials
This descriptive-correlational study analyzed the relationships between variables through structural equation modeling. The statistical population included all elderly who referred to daily and round-the-clock of Welfare centers in Tehran in 2020. Convenience sampling, and using SAMPLE POWER software was employed to select 298 elderly individuals from 27 centers (Ebnesina, Orthodox Elders, Omid, Aria, Anusha, Panah, Toheed, Jannat, Chiloyan, Hazrat Maryam, Sepidar, Dareshkan Stars, Saraye Yahud, Sousse Mayrik, Salehin Farzaneh, Sadra, Forohar Zartoshti, Kamal, Nora, Golbarg, Georg Moghadas , Muj No, Mehraban, Mehrpooya, Mehrgol Haft Tir, Negar, Yas and Arman Shayan). The elderly answered the questionnaires of Intimacy Attitude Scale (Amidon, Kumar & Treadwell, 1983), Social Well-Being Questionnaire (Keyes, 2004), Life Experience Survey (Sarason, Johnson & Siegel, 1978), and Positive Feelings Questionnaire (O'Leary, Fincham & Turkewitz, 1975).

Results
Demographic characteristics indicated that the mean age of the elderly and the standard deviation were 85.55±4.7; the distribution of elderly' gender showed that 180 (60.4) of them were female; The majority of the participants had elementry education (124 people); The majority of the participants were retired (108 people); Concerning marital status, the majority of the participants were married (52%). In the following, defaults of path analysis of structural equation were performed. The normality of the sample was analyzed, skewness values and kurtosis values was in the range of (+2 and -2). Therefore, the distribution of scores was normal. Also, tolerance for all variables was more than 0.4, and variance inflation factor "VIF" was less than 10. The model fit assessed with GFI (0.91), AGFI (0.92), NFI (0.97), CFI (0.94), IFI (0.91), PNFI (0.65), RMSEA (0.08), and chi-square index (2.63). The values was indicate acceptable fit. Finally, the standardized coefficients was shown in the model (Figure 1). The results of structural equation modeling showed that the model had a relatively fit; And it confirmed the direct effect of intimacy attitudes (0.54) and life experiences (-0.23) on social health. Also, the results of the mediating role of positive feelings towards spouse showed that positive feelings towards spouse has a significant mediating role (0.25) between intimacy attitudes and life experiences with social health (P<0.05). 



Conclusion  
This study aimed providing a structural model for predicting the social health of the elderly based on life experiences, intimacy attitudes, and positive feelings towards spouse. The results of this study showed that intimacy attitudes and life experiences directly, and positive feelings towards spouse indirectly has been effective on the social health of the elderly. The result obtained corresponds with several studies [19, 24, 26, 30, 32-34]. Therefore, it is suggested that mental health clinics pay attention to their characteristics intimacy attitudes and life experiences in review elderly's social health.

Ethical Considerations

Compliance with ethical guidelines
This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Islamic Azad University, Arak Branch, Arak, Iran.

Funding
This article was extracted from the doctoral thesis of Maleehe Zamanpour, approved by Islamic Azad University, Arak Branch, Arak, Iran. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Authors' contributions
Conceptualization: Maliheh Zamanpour; Methodology and validation: Zabih Pirani; Investigation: Maliheh Zamanpour and Zabih Pirani; Editing and final draft preparation: All authors. 

Conflicts of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank all the seniors who participated in this research for their cooperation.

 

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