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Die psychische Stabilität alter Menschen
Abstract The mental stability of the elderly was assessed by ten characteristics: sense of coherence, depression, life satisfaction, attitude towards one’s own ageing, subjective age, subjective health, optimism, potential of shared responsibility, barriers to shared responsibility, developmental gains. These characteristics of psychological stability were related to nine socio-structural characteristics: age, gender, marital status, social class, type of household, household size, employment history, place of residence and degree of care. “Sense of coherence” and “optimism” show particularly close correlations with socio-structural characteristics. For these two, “level of need for care” and “social class” show the highest correlations. The level of need for care also correlates highly with other characteristics: With a level of at least 2, one finds higher depressiveness, lower life satisfaction and a perception of fewer developmental gains. This shows the psychological vulnerability of elderly people in need of care. Social class shows high correlations with life satisfaction, potential and developmental gains. Cluster analyses were carried out on the above-mentioned psychological characteristics, the results of which were related to socio-structural characteristics. Here, too, the potential influence of objectively given problem factors vs. resources with regard to shaping the self and the world of the individual became apparent.
Keywords Living environment, prevention, self-design, social structure, world-design
