Living and Thriving: Exploring Resilience in Advanced Age

Abstract

Important components of resilience include a sense of personal control and positive ways of coping. People with high levels of these attributes are likely to manage challenging situations more successfully. Despite greater disability and health decline, people in their advanced years are as resilient as younger people and may still maintain a positive outlook and have good quality of life. This paper begins an exploration of resiliency within a cohort of older people living in the Bay of Plenty and Rotorua in New Zealand who are enrolled in the longitudinal cohort study, LILACS NZ (Life and Living in Advanced Age: the Cohort Study in New Zealand). Aim: To explore the relationship between resiliency and quality of life and life satisfaction in advanced age. Methods: Three hundred and fifty seven Maori (born 1920-1930) and 502 non Maori participants (born 1925) are enrolled and undergoing an interviewer-led questionnaire and health assessment. Measures of resiliency are a 7-item Mastery Scale (Pearlin and Schooler, 1978) and a 6-item scale of perceived coping ability. Quality of life and life satisfaction are measured with one question each. Findings: Preliminary findings show that 20% of LILACS participants are high in coping and mastery skills. Both satisfaction with life and quality of life were rated significantly higher for people with high mastery scores (p=0.0013 and p<0.0001 respectively) and high coping scores (p=0.0016, p<0.0001 respectively). Those who feel that they cope well and that they have control in their lives are more likely to say they are very satisfied with their lives and rate their quality of life as very good. Relevance to the conference theme: Challenges to health and personal strength are common in current society for all ages. Feelings of positivity seem to be related to resiliency. This resiliency develops over time and, if maximised, could improve outcomes when facing health decline.