Correspondence of perceptions about centenarians' mental health

The goals of this study were to uncover the criteria by which centenarians, proxy/caregivers, and interviewers rated centenarians' mental health. Often proxy and interviewer reports are obtained in studies of the oldest-old and become a primary source of information.

Data were from a population-based sample of mentally competent US centenarians in northern Georgia. The dependent variables were based on alternative reports for the centenarians' mental or emotional health. Regression analysis was used to predict each source's rating of mental health separately with the same set of variables. These variables included information obtained from the centenarians and proxies about their distal experiences, demographics, and proximal resources including Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE), health, personality, socioeconomic resources, and coping behaviors.

Examination of mean-level differences between sources revealed similarity across mental health ratings. For centenarians and proxies, perceived economic status was a very important predictor of mental health. For centenarians and interviewers, personality (neuroticism and extraversion) was an important common predictor. The interviewer and proxy mental health ratings were strongly associated with MMSE, but that was not the case for centenarians.

Mean-level findings and the comparative regression results provide corroborating evidence that centenarians' self-reports of mental health are similar based on average ratings and presence of common associations with other raters (i.e., perceived economic status and personality). Implications of differences across rater pairs are discussed as guidance about the comparative value of substitution of proxies as informants for addressing specific influences on mental health.