The mental health of the elderly

A two-stage sampling method was employed for this study. In the first stage, five elderly care institutions in Tangshan Province were randomly selected from a pool of 70 institutions listed in the Notice of Hebei Provincial Department of Civil Affairs on the Grading Results of Elderly Care Institutions in January 2022. In the second stage, cluster sampling was conducted among the elderly residents within these five selected institutions. A total of 491 elderly individuals were initially surveyed, and 456 valid questionnaires were collected, resulting in an effective recovery rate of 92.9%.  To investigate the current status of mental health among older adults in nursing homes and examine the relationships between self-efficacy, mental health, sense of belonging, and happiness, as well as the mediating role of sense of belonging and happiness in the chain of effects.