Terminal change and adaptation of subjective well-being in very old age: The role of physical health and health- and death-related anxieties in the approach of the end of life

该项目旨在深入研究老年人身体健康下降的心理后果，重点是主观幸福感（SWB）的适应。它解决了关于这一特定年龄组的调查结果方面的基本研究空白，并考虑到死亡率在这类最高龄研究中的特别重要性。本研究的目的是：（1）研究健康限制对高龄者主观幸福感变化的影响;（2）研究物理环境的背景因素以及（3）与健康和死亡相关的焦虑对这种适应性变化的影响。跟踪以前生成的非常古老的样本，该研究用于将现有的数据主体扩展为扩大的纵向格式，从而能够通过使用复杂的纵向方法（例如生长曲线模型，生存分析）深入分析适应性和死亡率相关的变化。建议的研究旨在促进缺乏知识的程度，限制，和混杂因素的适应年龄组的发病风险增加的严重影响。

This project aims to contribute in-depth studies of the psychological consequences of degrading physical health in very old age, focussing on adaptation of subjective wellbeing (SWB). It addresses basic research gaps regarding findings on this particular age group and the consideration of the particular importance of mortality in such oldest-old study. The objectives are (1) to examine the impact of health constraints on changes in SWB in very old age, (2) to examine the impacts of contextual aspects of the physical environment, as well as (3) of health- and death-related anxieties on such adaptational changes, the latter objectives both addressing assumably fundamental aspects under oldest-old age conditions, which have hardly been considered in adaptation research. Following-up a previously generated sample of very old, the study serves to extend this existing data body into a enlarged longitudinal format, enabling in-depth analyses of adaptational and mortality-related changes by use of sophisticated longitudinal methodology (such as growth curve models, survival analyses). The suggested research aims to contribute to the lack of knowledge about extent, limits, and confounders of adaptation in the age group crucially affected by increasing morbidity risks.