Selfreported life satisfaction of elderly people in Northwest Croatia

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Self-reported life satisfaction of elderly people
in Northwest Croatia

• Marlena Plavic
• Association of Psychologists of Istria
• Neala Ambrosi-Randic
• Faculty of Philosophy, Pula, Univ. of Rijeka

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Demographic picture older than 60

• In 2001
• Croatia 21,5 older than 60
• Istrian county 21,7 older than 60

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Life satisfaction

• defined as an overall assessment of one's life,
  including one's current life (Bowling and
  Neurgarten)
• concerned with the experience of life rather than
  the conditions of life (Campbell, Converse and
  Rogers)
• directly attributable to the quality of life

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• Studies on elderly their life satisfaction and
  subjective quality of life - fairly high.
• Studies on youth and elderly elderly people are
  more satisfied with their lives than the young

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Life satisfaction is usually related with

• Perceived health
• Social relationships
• Income
• Education/(previous) occupational status
• Functional capacity
• Life style (active or passive)

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Perceived health

• Lower life satisfaction is associated with
• recent health problems
• chronic illnesses
• functional impairment
• depression.
• However, some studies have not supported it.

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Social relationships

• Better social support - associated with higher
  life satisfaction.
• Amount and frequency of social contacts - not
  consistently linked with higher life
  satisfaction.

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Life style

• Higher life satisfaction is present in more
  active elderly people
• By selecting activities which promote competence
  and achievement retirees overcome feelings of
  helplessness

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Income and occupational status/education

• Both higher income and higher occupational
  status/education usually connected with higher
  life satisfaction, although inconsistently.
• Financial strain - consistently and negatively
  associated with life satisfaction.

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Age, marital status, gender

• The effects of age, marital status and gender on
  life satisfaction - rather uncertain

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Not to forget!

• Life satisfaction can be both
• predictor and predicted

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Purpose of the study

• To assess levels of satisfaction in six major
  domains
• Family
• Friends
• Self
• Living environment
• Job
• Overall life satisfaction

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Hypotheses

• healthier and more active people will report
  higher levels of life satisfaction
• specific hypotheses regarding the effect of the
  selected demographic variables were not formulated

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Sample

• 452 subjects
• 60-90 years old
• from the Northwest Croatia (i.e. Istrian county)
• from 12 communities grouped in 3 sizes smaller,
  medium, large

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Measures

• A modified version of the Questionnaire on needs
  and quality of life developed by Spitek
• A modified version of Life satisfaction scale
  constructed by Huebner, Drane and Valois (5
  -point responses from completely satisfied to
  completely dissatisfied)

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Procedure

• This is a part of a larger survey studying needs
  and quality of life of elderly in NW Croatia
• It took part from Nov 2004 - Jan 2005
• Individual administration of questionnaire
• Random sample (from the elections lists)

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Results

• The average score across all participants for
  life satisfaction was 20.02, SD 3.0 (minimal
  possible score 5, maximal possible score 25)
• No differences in life satisfaction between males
  and females

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Life satisfaction with specific domains of life
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Socio-demographic variables

• Greater satisfaction was found in elderly
• living in medium size communities (1.700 10.400
  inhabitants) compared with those living in the
  largest one (58.600 inhabitants)
• who live with their spouses, not alone
• with higher level of education
• that assess their material status better than
  those of others

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Health-related variables

• 60 of subjects reported cardiac insufficiency
• 20 pulmonary problems
• 13 endocrine problems
• 33 rheumatic disease
• 23 loss of visual ability
• 22.1 digestive disease
• 16 allergy
• 12 loss of auditory acuity
• 8.4 cancer
• 5 mental illness
• Higher life satisfaction was found in elderly
  that dont suffer from any illnesses.

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Activity-related variables

• Higher life satisfaction is present in more
  active elderly people
• Those that go to church and keep themselves busy
  with housework, gardening, grandchildren and
  animals show higher level of life satisfaction

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Are elderly satisfied with their lives?

• Similarly to findings abroad, majority of elderly
  in Northwest Croatia reports positive levels of
  satisfaction with their overall lives and
  important specific domains (family, friends,
  living environment, self and general life).