Tenacious self-reliance in health maintenance may jeopardize late life survival

Although an active pursuit of health goals is typically adaptive, there may be circumstances in very late life when it is not. Our 10-year study of community-dwelling individuals (n = 220, 79-98 years-old) examined whether investing substantial effort into personal health (high selective primary control) in the absence of help-seeking strategies (low compensatory primary control) jeopardized survival for very old adults who varied in functional independence (low, high). Cox proportional hazard models showed selective primary control (SPC) predicted 10-year mortality risk for only those with low compensatory primary control (CPC) and high initial functional independence. For these individuals, each standard deviation increase in SPC predicted a 101% higher risk of death. Results are consistent with the lines-of-defense model (Heckhausen et al., 2013) and suggest that, for very old adults with little previous need for help-seeking strategies, tenacious self-reliance (high SPC, low CPC) may have life-shortening consequences. (PsycINFO Database Record