Determinants of social resources

contacts in the Russian women: the Russian women with higher age have less social contacts.

For the Russian men a corresponding correlation was not found. This could be ascribed to the fact that the Russian men have less social contacts.

It was found that the Russian group – of all other Sağlik groups with migration background - has the highest percentage of people who live alone (about two fifth of all). This percentage for the German control group is even higher (about one halve of all). Persons who live alone can have a risk of isolation, for them the social networking is very important. Since isolation was investigated in the study not directly, but by the question of living alone, by frequency of social contacts, and by the spare time activity, there could be a limitation of the study.

The results about the spare time activities show that the Russian participants, on average, spend their spare time alone about as often as with other people, whereas the other Sağlik respondents spend their spare time more often with other people. In general, the Russian participants spend their spare time alone significantly more often than the other participants.

This fact could also be a risk factor for isolation for those Russian participants with less frequent team activities than the average Russian, especially if they live alone and have less social contacts.

The study confirms the knowledge that more frequent team activity is accompanied by better subjective state of health (Borgonovi 2010): there was found a significant week positive correlation between frequency of team activity and subjective state of health of the Russian participants.

Methodically, it should be noticed that the instrument for social contacts and spare time activity was not sufficient. As an extreme example there may be a person whose brother – at the same time – his friend, his neighbor and his colleague, whom he sees every day, and who has very few other social contacts. If he answers every time that he sees daily his family members, his friend, his neighbor, and his colleague, then he gives the impression of a lot of social contacts, although there is only one person, whom he sees as often as one a day.

Also the question about spare time activities gives only indirect possibility to assess isolation because only two questions about hobby and library visits. For the future research the use of other instruments (e.g. Lubben Social Network Scale (Lubben et al. 1988), De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale (De Jong Gierveld 1999a; 2000) to investigate social contacts and isolation could be helpful.

The results about getting help show that the Russian participants who get help have significantly better subjective state of health than those who do not get help. The findings about getting help in household, outside the home and with the basic activities of daily living show that 20 to 70% of the respondents get this help. There were found significant differences between four nationalities, both for men and women. So, the Russian men get help more often than the other participating men, the Turkish women get help more often than the other participating women. The results about need in help and support by the Sağlik participants in their everyday life, compared to what they currently have, show that 10 to 23%

of the respondents need additional help. The Russian interviewees generally need less help than the participants of the other groups. This could be explained by cultural differences and by a possible lack of awareness of social facilities. It was also noticed, that all participants with migration background who already get help need more help compared to corresponding respondents who get no help. This result is difficult to assess without the further research investigations.

It was found, that in the Russian group higher age was accompanied by lower frequency of getting help: there is a statistically significant difference in age between the Russian men and women getting help and getting no help. This fact probably can be explained by a loss of social contacts with increasing age.

The assessment of the results about getting help is difficult, because selection bias of the convenient sample selection method: persons in need help in household, outside the home and with the basic activities of daily living are rarely seen in public and therefore mostly not included in the study. Random sampling in future researches can prevent this selection bias.

Results about the social support show, that on the average, the Russian and the other Sağlik participants receive strong to moderate social support from their relatives and friends. The highest social support was found for the Turkish participants, only a little higher than for the German respondents. Social support from their relatives and friends is significantly lower for the Russian and the Polish group. There was found no significant correlation between age and social support in the Russian group.

8.1.3.2 Self efficacy

It is known that a strong sense of personal self-efficacy is related to better health and better social integration (Bandura, 1977). In this study, however, a significant association between

GSE and the subjective state of health of the Russian respondents was not found. Possible reason could be the relatively similar GSE values of the Russian participants with relatively small deviation from the mean value as well as a small sample size. Also the correlation between age and general self-efficacy did not attain significance in the Russian group.

The level of general self-efficacy is relatively high for the participants of all four groups. GSE of the Russian, Turkish and Polish participants is significantly higher than that of the German participants. The GSE of the Russian women is lower than that of the women with Turkish and Polish background. The men generally have significantly higher GSE than the women.

Scholz et al. (2002) try to explain this difference by the culturally defined gender roles, which seem to reflect such a difference.

8.1.3.3 Resume for the Russian group

Generally, the Russian respondents have fewer social contacts and lower social support than the other participants with migration background; they spend their spare time alone significantly more often than the other participants; in the Russian group the percentage of people who get help, as well as the frequency of their social contacts, decrease with age.

These findings could indicate that the Russian respondents do not sufficiently use social resources as a protective factor for health. This conjecture is supported by the fact that more than one third of the Russian respondents would like to know more about social networking in their community (Russian meetings points, cultural arrangements for Russian people in Hamburg, information about early retirement pension, care assistance, German language course). There really seems to be a need for strengthening of the social networks of the Russian migrants by adequate programs.