Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T14:56:02.340Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Association of the selected dimensions of eudaimonic well-being with healthy survival to 85 years of age in older women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2014

Oleg Zaslavsky ,
Eileen Rillamas-Sun ,
Nancy Fugate Woods ,
Barbara B. Cochrane Open the ORCID record for Barbara B. Cochrane [Opens in a new window] ,
Marcia L. Stefanick ,
Hilary Tindle ,
Lesley F. Tinker  and
Andrea Z. LaCroix
Oleg Zaslavsky*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Health Science and Social Welfare, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Eileen Rillamas-Sun
Affiliation:
Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington, USA
Nancy Fugate Woods
Affiliation:
School of Nursing, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
Barbara B. Cochrane
Affiliation:
Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington, USA School of Nursing, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
Marcia L. Stefanick
Affiliation:
Stanford Prevention Research Center, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA
Hilary Tindle
Affiliation:
Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Lesley F. Tinker
Affiliation:
Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington, USA
Andrea Z. LaCroix
Affiliation:
Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington, USA Division of Epidemiology, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, California, USA
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: Oleg Zaslavsky, PhD, Faculty of Health Sciences and Social Welfare, Department of Nursing, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel. Phone: +972-547832536; Fax: +972-48288017. Email: oleg.zaslavsky@fulbrightmail.org.
Get access

Abstract

Background:

Aspects of eudaimonic well-being, such as personal growth (PG) and purpose in life (PL), have been highlighted as important to older adults’ health. We investigated the relationship of PG and PL with patterns of survival to the age of 85 years and older.

Methods:

The sample included 8,880 women from the Women's Health Initiative cohort who reached 85 years of age by December 1, 2013, and for whom data on the PG and PL constructs were available. Women were classified into mutually exclusive outcomes: Healthy, Prevalent, Incident, Disabled, and Deceased. PG and PL were each assessed using a modified seven-item measure derived from the Psychological Well-Being scale.

Results:

Women were most commonly classified as Healthy (38.2%, n = 3,395), followed by Incident (24.4%, n = 2,163), Disabled (19.0%, n = 1,685), Prevalent (14.3%, 1,273), and Deceased (4.1%, n = 364). Women with low PL and PG levels were more likely to have prevalent mobility disability and disease or incident death before the age of 85 years. Specifically, those who reported low levels of PG and PL had a 2.1- and 3.6-fold higher risk, respectively, of death.

Conclusions:

These findings indicate that even among the oldest old, experience of purposeful life engagement and continuing PG may contribute to better health outcomes.

Keywords

women’s healthagingwell-beingfunctioningpurpose in lifepersonal growth
Type
Research Article
Information
International Psychogeriatrics , Volume 26 , Special Issue 12: young onset dementia , December 2014 , pp. 2081 - 2091
Copyright
Copyright © International Psychogeriatric Association 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbott, R. A., Ploubidis, G. B., Huppert, F. A., Kuh, D., Wadsworth, M. E. and Croudace, T. J. (2006). Psychometric evaluation and predictive validity of Ryff's psychological well-being items in a UK birth cohort sample of women. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 4, 76. doi:10.1186/1477-7525-4-76.Google Scholar
Anderson, G. L. et al. (2003). Implementation of the Women's Health Initiative study design. Annals of Epidemiology, 13 (Suppl. 9), S5–S17. doi:10.1016/S1047-2797(03)00043-7.Google Scholar
Andrew, M. K., Fisk, J. D. and Rockwood, K. (2012). Psychological well-being in relation to frailty: a frailty identity crisis? International Psychogeriatrics, 24, 1347–1353. doi:10.1017/S1041610212000269.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Antonovsky, A. (1987). Unraveling the Mystery of Health: How People Manage Stress and Stay Well. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Boyle, P. A., Barnes, L. L., Buchman, A. S. and Bennett, D. A. (2009). Purpose in life is associated with mortality among community-dwelling older persons. Psychosomatic Medicine, 71, 574–579. doi:10.1097/PSY.0b013e3181a5a7c0.Google Scholar
Boyle, P. A., Buchman, A. S., Barnes, L. L. and Bennett, D. A. (2010). Effect of a purpose in life on risk of incident Alzheimer disease and mild cognitive impairment in community-dwelling older persons. Archives of General Psychiatry, 67, 304–310. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2009.208.Google Scholar
Buettner, D. (2008). The Blue Zones. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society.Google Scholar
Burnam, M. A., Wells, K. B., Leake, B. and Landsverk, J. (1988). Development of a brief screening instrument for detecting depressive disorders. Medical Care, 26, 775–789. doi:10.1097/00005650-198808000-00004.Google Scholar
Carlson, M. C. et al. (2008). Exploring the effects of an “everyday” activity program on executive function and memory in older adults: Experience Corps®. Gerontologist, 48, 793–801. doi:10.1093/geront/48.6.793.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cuijpers, P. and Smit, F. (2002). Excess mortality in depression: a meta-analysis of community studies. Journal of Affective Disorders, 72, 227–236. doi:10.1016/S0165-0327(01)00413-X.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diener, E. and Chan, M. Y. (2011). Happy people live longer: subjective well-being contributes to health and longevity. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 3, 1–43. doi:10.1111/j.1758-0854.2010.01045.x.Google Scholar
Friedman, E. M., Hayney, M., Love, G. D., Singer, B. H. and Ryff, C. D. (2007). Plasma interleukin-6 and soluble IL-6 receptors are associated with psychological well-being in aging women. Health Psychology, 26, 305–313. doi:10.1037/0278-6133.26.3.305.Google Scholar
Friedman, E. M. and Ryff, C. D. (2012). Living well with medical comorbidities: a biopsychosocial perspective. Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 67, 535–544. doi:10.1093/geronb/gbr152.Google Scholar
Greenfield, E. A. and Marks, N. F. (2004). Formal volunteering as a protective factor for older adults’ psychological well-being. Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 59, S258–S264. doi:10.1093/geronb/59.5.S258.Google Scholar
Long, J. S. (1997). Regression Models for Categorical and Limited Dependent Variables. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Lundman, B. et al. (2010). Sense of coherence (SOC) related to health and mortality among the very old: the Umea 85+ study. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 51, 329–332. doi:10.1016/j.archger.2010.01.013.Google Scholar
Nilsson, K. W., Leppert, J., Simonsson, B. and Starrin, B. (2010). Sense of coherence and psychological well-being: improvement with age. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 64, 347–352. doi: 10.1136/jech.2008.081174.Google Scholar
Pressman, S. D. and Cohen, S. (2005). Does positive affect influence health? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 925–971. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.131.6.925.Google Scholar
Rahilly-Tierney, C. R., Spiro, A. III, Vokonas, P. and Gaziano, J. M. (2011). Relation between high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and survival to age 85 years in men (from the VA normative aging study). American Journal of Cardiology, 107, 1173–1177. doi:10.1016/j.amjcard.2010.12.015.Google Scholar
Rillamas-Sun, E. et al. (2013). Obesity and late-age survival without major disease or disability in older women. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174, 98–106. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.12051.Google Scholar
Ryan, R. M. and Deci, E. L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 141–166. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.141.Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D. (1991). Possible selves in adulthood and old age: a tale of shifting horizons. Psychology and Aging, 6, 286–295. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.6.2.286.Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D. (2014). Psychological well-being revisited: advances in the science and practice of eudaimonia. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 83, 10–28. doi:10.1159/000353263.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ryff, C. D. and Keyes, C. L. (1995). The structure of psychological well-being revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 719–727. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.69.4.719.Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D., Singer, B. H. and Love, G. D. (2004). Positive health: connecting well-being with biology. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 359, 1383–1394. doi:10.1098/rstb.2004.1521.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ryff, C. D. et al. (2006). Psychological well-being and ill-being: do they have distinct or mirrored biological correlates? Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 75, 85–95. doi:10.1159/000090892.Google Scholar
Springer, K. W., Pudrovska, T. and Hauser, R. M. (2011). Does psychological well-being change with age? Longitudinal tests of age variations and further exploration of the multidimensionality of Ryff's model of psychological well-being. Social Science Research, 40, 392–398. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2010.05.008.Google Scholar
Steptoe, A., Wardle, J. and Marmot, M. (2005). Positive affect and health-related neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and inflammatory processes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102, 6508–6512. doi:10.1073/pnas.0409174102.Google Scholar
Suls, J. and Bunde, J. (2005). Anger, anxiety, and depression as risk factors for cardiovascular disease: the problems and implications of overlapping affective dispositions. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 260–300. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.131.2.260.Google Scholar
Vaillant, G. (2002). Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Varadhan, R. et al. (2008). Higher levels and blunted diurnal variation of cortisol in frail older women. Journals of Gerontology. Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 63, 190–195. doi:10.1093/gerona/63.2.190.Google Scholar
Wiesmann, U. and Hannich, H. J. (2008). A salutogenic view on subjective well-being in active elderly persons. Aging & Mental Health, 12, 56–65. doi:10.1080/13607860701365998.Google Scholar
Wood, A. M. and Joseph, S. (2010). The absence of positive psychological (eudemonic) well-being as a risk factor for depression: a ten year cohort study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 122, 213–217. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2009.06.032.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Zaslavsky Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material 1

Download Zaslavsky Supplementary Material(File)
File 15.2 KB
Supplementary material: File

Zaslavsky Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material 2

Download Zaslavsky Supplementary Material(File)
File 23.5 KB