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Objective: to identify socio-psychological predictors of mortality during a 20-year follow-up period among people aged 65 to <85 and 85+ at baseline interview. Study design and setting: elderly people living at home in East London and mid-Essex, who responded to surveys of successful survival in older age in the late 1980s; their mortality was traced through the National Health Central Registry. Results: adjusted analyses show that, as expected, the hazard rate for mortality over a 20-year follow-up was reduced for younger respondents and increased for less functionally able respondents. The hazard ratio for males was almost one and a half times that of females. The hazard rate was also reduced with each categorical increase in life satisfaction and was consistently reduced for those who undertook crafts, social visiting and activities regularly. There was some variation by age and sex. Conclusion: the results show that social participation is associated with lower risks of death, particularly among people aged 65 to <85, and that life satisfaction is also protective, particularly among females and people aged 85+, even when health status and socio-demographic circumstances are controlled. The study thus provides support for the hypothesised influence of social participation and subjective well-being on survival in older age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: to investigate the apparently incongruous coupling of poor physical functioning with high QoL. Study design and setting: face-to-face interview survey of random sample of 999 people aged 65+ across Britain. Results: twenty-one per cent of respondents reported fairly to very severe levels of functional difficulty, and 62% of these rated their QoL as 'good'. Better self-rated health, lower burden of chronic disease, not having fallen, higher social engagement and higher levels of perceived control over life, distinguished between people who had difficulties with physical functioning and who perceived their QoL to be 'good', rather than 'not good'. The open-ended survey responses broadly supported the quantitative findings. Conclusion: people with difficulties with physical functioning, who perceived their QoL to be 'not good', as opposed to 'good', were adversely affected by a higher burden of disease and having fewer socio-psychological resources to help them to cope effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: there is increasing interest in how to age 'successfully' and in reaching consensus over its definition. Objective: to assess different models of successful ageing, using a British longitudinal survey of ageing in 2000-1. Setting: community, settings in Britain. Methods: five models of successful ageing were tested on a British cross-sectional population survey of 999 people aged 65+. The models were biomedical, broader biomedical, social, psychological and lay based. Results: the lay model emerged as the strongest. Respondents who were classified as successfully aged with this model, compared with those not successfully aged, had over five times the odds of rating their quality of life (QoL) as good rather than not good [odds ratio (OR) = 5.493, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) - 2.655-11.364]. Conclusion: the lay-based, more multidimensional, model of successful ageing predicted perceived QoL more powerfully than unidimensional models and should be used to evaluate the outcomes of health promotion in older populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]