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In recent decades, a rapid increase of elderly persons has been observed in the population of all developed nations. However, this social blessing comes with some adverse developments such as increased numbers of elderly persons who live many years with poor quality of life due to severe chronic diseases and functional limitations. The purpose of the present study is to promote knowledge about and understanding of the role of elderly persons in shaping their own future by controlling the distressing effects of deterioration in health and functioning. More specifically, the proposed prospective study is designed to investigate effects of two different coping patterns, before and after experiencing health losses, on successful aging. B
ased on the theoretical models of Baltes & Baltes, and Kahana & Kahana, we hypothesize that participants with severe decline in health and functioning, but high levels of coping resources, who use proactive and reactive patterns of coping, will report higher levels of subjective well-being than participants with similar decline in health and functioning, who have less coping resources and do not use these patterns of coping.
A random sample of persons aged 75 and over, living in 2 towns, will be drawn from Maccabi's records. The participants will be interviewed twice, with one-year interval, using a structured questionnaires based on theories and previous research. New and translated research tools were already pre-tested for reliability and validity.
The prospective and multivariate design of this innovative study will enable us to compare the relative value of two different health-specific patterns of coping – proactive and reactive, to elderly persons’ well-being while controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, external coping resources (income, support), and internal resources (education, self-efficacy, goal and life management strategies).
Since knowledge about long-term affects of the use of both of these health-specific coping patterns on subjective well-being is lacking, the findings of this study will make a significant contribution by promoting the understanding of effective coping with health losses at old age. In addition, our findings will contribute to the development of valued interventions for improving elderly persons’ patterns of coping with health losses, and their subjective well-being.
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