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- Title
Purpose in Life Among Centenarian Offspring.
- Authors
Marone, Sarah; Bloore, Katherine; Sebastiani, Paola; Flynn, Christopher; Leonard, Brittany; Whitaker, Kelsey; Mostowy, Marilyn; Perls, Thomas T; Andersen, Stacy L
- Abstract
Objectives Purpose in life (PIL), a feeling of meaning and direction in life, is associated with favorable health outcomes including lower mortality and reduced risk of disease, disability, and cognitive impairment. Since centenarian offspring have been shown to have long health spans we sought to examine whether they have higher PIL than individuals without familial longevity. Method We compared PIL scores from the Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-Being in centenarian offspring from the New England Centenarian Study (N = 361, mean age = 82.0 years) with 3 referent groups: spouses, birth cohort-matched referents, and Health and Retirement Study (HRS) participants. Results Logistic regression analyses adjusted for age, sex, education, and marital status indicated greater odds of high PIL among centenarian offspring compared with spouse (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.92, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.002–3.68, p =.049) and birth cohort referents (aOR = 2.64, 95% CI = 1.36–5.14, p =.004). Offspring had an almost 3 times greater odds of having high PIL than HRS participants (odds ratio [OR] = 2.93, 95% CI = 2.17–3.96, p <.0001). Discussion Higher PIL is associated with being an offspring of a long-lived parent and may play a role in the ability to delay age-associated illnesses and functional decline. Increasing purposefulness may be a target for interventions to promote healthy aging.
- Subjects
CENTENARIANS; CONFIDENCE intervals; LIFE; LONGEVITY; LOGISTIC regression analysis; DESCRIPTIVE statistics; ACTIVE aging; ODDS ratio
- Publication
Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences & Social Sciences, 2020, Vol 75, Issue 2, p308
- ISSN
1079-5014
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/geronb/gby023