one-person households, multi-person households, seniors, social support

OBJECTIVES: The objective of the article is to analyze and describe the availability and sources of social support in selected difficult situations of seniors according to the type of their household. THEORETICAL BASE: The theoretical basis of the article is the theory of social support based on the sociological paradigm. METHODS: The method of secondary analysis was based on data from the Czech Social Sciences Data Archive called Sociální sítě (ISSP, 2001). In our analysis, we answered the research question: "What is the availability and what are the sources of the social support in the selected difficult situations of seniors, according to the type of their household?" OUTCOMES: The overall result of our research is that regardless of the type of households, seniors in general do not have sufficient availability of social support from informal sources in selected difficult situations. Another finding is that the closest family members should be the source of the social support for home assistance, financial assistance, and emotional support. SOCIAL WORK IMPLICATIONS: We assume that in order to ensure adequate availability of social support in difficult situations of seniors, it is necessary to involve social work as one of the possible sources of the social support for them.