Discuss the concept that 'we can all age successfully' by evaluating the role psychosocial factors and their relationship to health, wellbeing and illness through the later life course. Skills Evaluat
Answers
Background
Healthy aging includes physical, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being in later years. The purpose of this study is to identify the psychosocial factors influencing healthy aging and examining their socio-demographic characteristics. Perceived health status, depression, self-esteem, self-achievement, ego-integrity, participation in leisure activities, and loneliness were identified as influential factors in healthy aging.
Methods
171 Korean adults aged between 45 and 77 years-old participated in the study. Self-reporting questionnaires were used, followed by descriptive statistics and multiple regressions as inferential statistical analyses.
Results
There were significant differences between participants’ general characteristics: age, education, religion, housing, hobby, and economic status. The factors related to healthy aging had positive correlation with perceived health status, self-esteem, self-achievements, and leisure activities, and negative correlation with depression and loneliness. The factors influencing healthy aging were depression, leisure activities, perceived health status, ego integrity, and self-achievements. These factors were able to explain 51.9%.
Conclusions
According to the results, depression is the factor with the greatest influence on healthy aging. Perceived health status, ego integrity, self-achievement, self-esteem, participation of leisure activities were also influential on healthy aging as beneficial factors.
Keywords: Healthy aging, Depression, Perceived heath status, Self-esteem, Achievement, Ego-integrity, Leisure activities, Loneliness