ORIGINAL PAPER
The relationship between meaning in life and resilience in older adults: a cross-sectional study
1
Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran
2
HIV/STI Surveillance Research Center, and WHO Collaborating Center for HIV Surveillance, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran
3
Physiology Research Center, Institute of Neuropharmacology, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran
4
Department of Aging, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran
5
Neuroscience Research Center, Institute of Neuropharmacology, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran
Submission date: 2019-04-20
Final revision date: 2019-05-06
Acceptance date: 2019-05-14
Online publication date: 2019-06-05
Publication date: 2019-06-04
Health Psychology Report 2019;7(2):133-138
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Background:
Meaning in life has been considered necessary for the psychological well-being of older adults. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between meaning in life and resilience in the elderly in Kerman, Iran.
Participants and procedure:
In this cross-sectional study, 300 older adults (aged more than 60 years) were included using the multistage sampling method in Kerman in 2018. The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) was used to investigate the resilience status, and for as-sessing meaning of life, Steger’s meaning in life questionnaire was employed. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation, chi-square, t-test, ANOVA and linear regression by IBM SPSS V21.
Results:
The mean age of participants was 67.3 ±7.9 years. Resilience status was significantly different in terms of gender (p = .021), educational status (p = .032), and self-reported health status (p = .003). There was a significant positive relationship between meaning in life and resilience (r = .38, p = .012). Independent variables (meaning in life, self-reported health status, gender) accounted for 31% of the variance in resilience (p ≤ .001).
Conclusions:
Considering meaning in life and resilience in older adults helps to improve psychological health and wellness and create a unique potential ability to confront the pitfalls of old age, which result in better physical, mental, social, and spiritual health in older adults.
Meaning in life has been considered necessary for the psychological well-being of older adults. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between meaning in life and resilience in the elderly in Kerman, Iran.
Participants and procedure:
In this cross-sectional study, 300 older adults (aged more than 60 years) were included using the multistage sampling method in Kerman in 2018. The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) was used to investigate the resilience status, and for as-sessing meaning of life, Steger’s meaning in life questionnaire was employed. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation, chi-square, t-test, ANOVA and linear regression by IBM SPSS V21.
Results:
The mean age of participants was 67.3 ±7.9 years. Resilience status was significantly different in terms of gender (p = .021), educational status (p = .032), and self-reported health status (p = .003). There was a significant positive relationship between meaning in life and resilience (r = .38, p = .012). Independent variables (meaning in life, self-reported health status, gender) accounted for 31% of the variance in resilience (p ≤ .001).
Conclusions:
Considering meaning in life and resilience in older adults helps to improve psychological health and wellness and create a unique potential ability to confront the pitfalls of old age, which result in better physical, mental, social, and spiritual health in older adults.
REFERENCES (36)
1.
Adams, K. B., Sanders, S., & Auth, E. (2004). Loneliness and depression in independent living retirement com-munities: risk and resilience factors. Aging & Mental Health, 8, 475–485.
2.
Addae-Dapaah, K., & Juan, Q. S. (2014). Life satisfaction among elderly households in public rental housing in Singapore. Health, 6, 1057–1076.
3.
Bhattacharya, A. (2011). Meaning in life: A qualitative inquiry into the life of young adults. Psychological Studies, 56, 280–288.
4.
Borhaninejad, V., Momenabadi, V., Hosseini, S., Mansori, T., Sadeghi, A., & Toroski, M. (2014). Health physical and mental status in the elderly of Kerman. Journal of North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences, 6, 715–725.
5.
Borhaninejad, V., Naghibzadeh-Tahami, A., Nabavi, H., Rashedi, V., & Yazdi-Feyzabadi, V. (2015). The utiliza-tion of health services and its influences among elderly people in Kerman-2014. Journal of North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences, 7, 229–240.
6.
Connor, K. M., & Davidson, J. R. (2003). Development of a new resilience scale: The Connor‐Davidson resili-ence scale (CD‐RISC). Depression and Anxiety, 18, 76–82.
7.
de Muijnck, W. (2013). The meaning of lives and the meaning of things. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14, 1291–1307.
8.
Debats, D. L., Van der Lubbe, P. M., & Wezeman, F. R. (1993). On the psychometric properties of the Life Re-gard Index (LRI): A measure of meaningful life: An evaluation in three independent samples based on the Dutch version. Personality and Individual Differences, 14, 337–345.
9.
Du, H., Li, X., Chi, P., Zhao, J., & Zhao, G. (2017). Meaning in life, resilience, and psychological well-being among children affected by parental HIV. AIDS Care, 29, 1410–1416.
10.
Ebrahimi, B., Hosseini, M., & Rashedi, V. (2018). The Relationship between social support and death anxiety among the elderly. Elderly Health Journal, 4, 37–42.
11.
Felten, B. S. (2000). Resilience in a multicultural sample of community-dwelling women older than age 85. Clin-ical Nursing Research, 9, 102–123.
12.
Frankl, V. (2005). Founder of logotherapy overview on psychology and existential psychotherapy. Tehran: Danjheh.
13.
Harlow, L. L., Newcomb, M. D., & Bentler, P. (1987). Purpose in life test assessment using latent variable meth-ods. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 26, 235–236.
14.
Henry, K. L., Lovegrove, P. J., Steger, M. F., Chen, P. Y., Cigularov, K. P., & Tomazic, R. G. (2014). The potential role of meaning in life in the relationship between bullying victimization and suicidal ideation. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43, 221–232.
15.
Izadi-Avanji, F. S., Kondabi, F., Reza Afazel, M., Akbari, H., & Zeraati-Nasrabady, M. (2017). Measurement and predictors of resilience among community-dwelling elderly in Kashan, Iran: A cross-sectional study. Nursing and Midwifery Studies, 6, e36397.
16.
Izydorczyk, B., Rąba, M., & Sitnik-Warchulska, K. (2018). Resilience, self-esteem, and body attitude in women from early to late adulthood. Health Psychology Report, 6, 193–206.
17.
Jeste, D. V., Savla, G. N., Thompson, W. K., Vahia, I. V., Glorioso, D. K., Martin, A. S., Palmer, B. W., Rock, D., Golshan, S., Kraemer, H. C., & Depp, C. A. (2013). Association between older age and more successful aging: critical role of resilience and depression. American Journal of Psychiatry, 170, 188–196.
18.
Kim, T. H., Lee, S. M., Yu, K., Lee, S., & Puig, A. (2005). Hope and the meaning of life as influences on Korean adolescents’ resilience: Implications for counselors. Asia Pacific Education Review, 6, 143–152.
19.
King, L. A., Hicks, J. A., Krull, J. L., & Del Gaiso, A. K. (2006). Positive affect and the experience of meaning in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 179–196.
20.
Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56, 227–238.
21.
Mesrabadi, J., Jafariyan, S., & Ostovar, N. (2013). Discriminative and construct validity of meaning in life ques-tionnaire for Iranian students. International Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 7, 83–90.
22.
Netuveli, G., Wiggins, R. D., Montgomery, S. M., Hildon, Z., & Blane, D. (2008). Mental health and resilience at older ages: Bouncing back after adversity in the British Household Panel Survey. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 62, 987–991.
23.
Nygren, B., Aléx, L., Jonsén, E., Gustafson, Y., Norberg, A., & Lundman, B. (2005). Resilience, sense of coher-ence, purpose in life and self-transcendence in relation to perceived physical and mental health among the oldest old. Aging & Mental Health, 9, 354–362.
24.
Orang, S., Hashemi Razini, H., & Ramshini, M. (2018). Investigating the meaning of life and psychological well-being in youth, adults, and elderly (a comparative study of three age groups). Iranian Journal of Ageing, 13, 182–197.
25.
Park, N., Park, M., & Peterson, C. (2010). When is the search for meaning related to life satisfaction? Applied Psychology: Health and Well‐Being, 2, 1–13.
26.
Parnicka, U. (2018). Physical activity in promoting health of the elderly. Health Problems of Civilization, 12, 265–271.
27.
Phillips, S. P., Auais, M., Belanger, E., Alvarado, B., & Zunzunegui, M. V. (2016). Life-course social and econom-ic circumstances, gender, and resilience in older adults: The longitudinal International Mobility in Aging Study (IMIAS). SSM-Population Health, 2, 708–717.
28.
Stavrova, O., & Luhmann, M. (2016). Social connectedness as a source and consequence of meaning in life. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11, 470–479.
29.
Steger, M. F., Kashdan, T. B., Sullivan, B. A., & Lorentz, D. (2008). Understanding the search for meaning in life: Personality, cognitive style, and the dynamic between seeking and experiencing meaning. Journal of Person-ality, 76, 199–228.
30.
Steger, M. F., Mann, J. R., Michels, P., & Cooper, T. C. (2009). Meaning in life, anxiety, depression, and general health among smoking cessation patients. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 67, 353–358.
31.
Ungar, M. (2011). The social ecology of resilience: Addressing contextual and cultural ambiguity of a nascent construct. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 81, 1–17.
32.
Van Tongeren, D. R., Hook, J. N., & Davis, D. E. (2013). Defensive religion as a source of meaning in life: A dual mediational model. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 5, 227–232.
33.
Waller, M. A. (2001). Resilience in ecosystemic context: Evolution of the concept. American Journal of Ortho-psychiatry, 71, 290–297.
34.
Windle, G. (2011). What is resilience? A review and concept analysis. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology, 21, 152–169.
35.
Wolf, S. (2016). Meaning in life: Meeting the challenges. Foundations of Science, 21, 279–282.
36.
Woo, E. K., Han, C., Jo, S. A., Park, M. K., Kim, S., Kim, E., Park, M. H., Lee, J., & Jo, I. (2007). Morbidity and related factors among elderly people in South Korea: results from the Ansan Geriatric (AGE) cohort study. BMC Public Health, 7, 10.
Copyright: © Institute of Psychology, University of Gdansk This is an Open Access journal, all articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.
Share
RELATED ARTICLE
| eISSN: | 2353-5571 |
| ISSN: | 2353-4184 |
We process personal data collected when visiting the website. The function of obtaining information about users and their behavior is carried out by voluntarily entered information in forms and saving cookies in end devices. Data, including cookies, are used to provide services, improve the user experience and to analyze the traffic in accordance with the Privacy policy. Data are also collected and processed by Google Analytics tool (more).
You can change cookies settings in your browser. Restricted use of cookies in the browser configuration may affect some functionalities of the website.
You can change cookies settings in your browser. Restricted use of cookies in the browser configuration may affect some functionalities of the website.
