engleski

Health and prediction of survival in old age

Numerous research results have confirmed that self assessments of health may be very good predictors of mortality in older people (Idler and Kasl, 1991), and even predict survival in old age better than objective assessments of physician. Although subjective health variables provide information on physical status of the person and his/her evaluation of it, self assessments, or self perceptions of health get their meaning only in comparison with health of other age peers or in comparison of the current health with his/her own previous health. The aim of this research was to investigate whether different self assessments of health show different prognostic validity in the prediction of survival in old age. The sample consisted of 469 older persons, from Zagreb, 208 (44, 3%) men and 261 (55, 7%) women. The data on their life status (dead/alive) and age were collected after a fifteen year follow up period. Apart from these, data on other variables were collected: general self assessment of health, comparison of the health of subjects to that of their age peers, self assessments of functional ability and psychosomatic symptoms. Data were analyzed by the survival analysis techniques: the Kaplan Meier and the Cox proportional hazards model. Results confirm the association of self assessed health variables and survival in subjects, except for the functional ability variable. The association shows positive correlations: the better an older person assessed his/her own health, the greater was his/her chance of longer survival. In the Cox proportional hazards model, the variables that significantly predicted survival were psychosomatic symptoms assessments and general self assessment of health.

Health; Survival; Aged

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