Abstrait

Direct and indirect effects of built and natural environment on elderly mental health: A meta-synthesis

Mahdi Khakzand

The places where people live affect their physical, social, and mental health. This is also true for the elderly. In this review, with the aim of increasing the understanding of how the built and natural environment impact elderly mental health, two scales of environment have been investigated, architecture (personal home and nursing home) and urban. Data were collected from three scientific databases (Science Direct, Scopus, and PubMed). The analysis of the meta-synthesis results demonstrates variety concepts that have direct and indirect effect. The extracted concepts were examined in three categories. By averaging determined that concepts related to Personal homes have a direct impact on mental health with 17.5%, whereas in nursing homes have indirect impact on mental health through physical health with 12.5% and in urban spaces have indirect impact through social health with 18%. Also, the connection with nature in all three spaces simultaneously created both types of effects. In the comparison among all the concepts in three categories, it was found that social interactions with 32% have the greatest impact on mental health