engleski

Some psychosocial predictors of successful aging among Croatian older adults

Numerous predictors of successful aging (SA), mostly health and lifestyle factors, were previously examined, but little research has been conducted on SA in Croatia. The main goal of this study was to examine the contribution of some aspects of psychosocial functioning (i.e. life satisfaction, the meaning of life, involvement in the community, optimism, and life regrets) to self-rated SA. The study was conducted on the sample of 306 community- dwelling Croatian adults, 60 to 89 years old. The Self-Rated Successful Aging Scale, based on a list of 20 attributes of SA, proposed by Phelan et al. (2004), was used to measuring SA. Results have shown that psychosocial factors explained significant, although modest, additional proportion of the variance in SA, after controlling for the contribution of sociodemographic variables and self-rated physical and mental health. The significant predictors of SA were: self-rated health, life satisfaction, the meaning of life/life purpose, involvement in the community, optimism, and regrets of wrong actions. This research supports the idea that self-rated health and psychosocial factors play a major role in the successful aging process.

successful aging, life satisfaction, meaning of life, community involvement, regrets

nije evidentirano