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Self-compassion as predictor of daily physical symptoms and chronic illness across older adulthood
Heather Herriot1, Carsten Wrosch1
1Concordia University, Canada.
Abstract:
This study examined whether self-compassion could benefit daily physical symptoms and chronic illness in early and advanced old age. The hypotheses were evaluated in a 4-year longitudinal study of 264 older adults. Results showed that self-compassion predicted lower levels of daily physical symptoms across the study period in advanced, but not early, old age (T-ratio = -1.93, p = 0.05). In addition, self-compassion was associated with fewer increases in chronic illness in advanced, but not early, old age (T-ratio = - 2.45, p < 0.02). The results of this study suggest that self-compassion may be particularly adaptive towards the end of life.
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