Year:
Applicant:
Trainee:
Institution:
Email:
mreid@mcmaster.ca
Project ID:
190241
Approved Project Status:
Project Summary
There is a growing number of older adults in Canada. These older adults often live with multiple chronic health conditions and depressive symptoms. In combination with other health conditions, depressive symptoms can cause a decreased quality of life, increase the chance of developing other health conditions, and increase the use of health services. Despite these challenges, many older adults with multiple chronic health conditions and depressive symptoms report their health as positive (“good”, “very good”, “excellent”). Self-reported health, frequently used by researchers and clinicians, is a strong predictor of future health status. Using quantitative and qualitative data, this research seeks to understand and explain the factors that explain self-reported health among this population. This knowledge will inform interventions that can address factors that decrease self-reported health, and increase those factors that promote health and support optimal aging at home.
Project findings
Self-reported health is a widely used epidemiologic measure, however, the factors that predict self-reported health among community-dwelling older adults (≥65 years), especially those with multimorbidity (≥2 chronic conditions), are poorly understood. Further, it is not known why some older adults self-report their health positively despite the presence of high levels of multimorbidity, a phenomenon known as the well-being paradox. The objectives of this study were to: 1) examine the factors that moderate or mediate the relationship between multimorbidity and self-reported health; 2) identify the factors that predict high self-reported health; and 3) determine whether these same factors predict high self-reported health among those with high levels of multimorbidity to better understand the well-being paradox.
None of the factors explored in this study moderated or mediated the relationship between multimorbidity and self-reported health, yet all were independently associated with self-reported health. The ‘top five’ factors predicting high self-reported health in the general older adult population were: lower level of multimorbidity, female sex, higher Life Space Index score, higher functional resilience, and higher psychological resilience. These same ‘top five’ factors predicted high self-reported health among the subset of this population with the well-being paradox.
Research brief: Self-Reported Health and the Well-Being Paradox Among Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study Using Baseline Data From the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA)