Dignity and attitudes to aging: A cross-sectional study of older adults

Dignity is a multidimensional construct that includes perception, knowledge, and emotions related to competence or respect. Attitudes to aging are a comprehensive personal view of the experience of aging over the course of life, which can be influenced by various factors, such as the levels of health and self-sufficiency and social, psychological, or demographic factors.

The purpose of this study was to explore the attitudes to aging of home-dwelling and inpatient older adults, and whether dignity and other selected factors belong among the predictors influencing attitudes to aging in these two different groups of older adults.

Cross-sectional study using a set of questionnaires: Patient Dignity Inventory, Attitudes to Aging Questionnaire, and Barthel Index. Pearson and Spearman correlation analyses and multivariable linear regression were used for statistical processing.

233 inpatients and 237 home-dwelling older adults participated in the research in two regions of the Czech Republic.

Institutional Review Board approval was received from the authors' university.

The inpatients had more negative attitudes to aging (M = 74.9±10.9; P <0.0001). The predictors of their attitudes to aging were gender and dignity. Women (β = -2.969, P = 0.045) and inpatients with poor dignity ratings (β = -0.332, P <0.0001) had more negative attitudes to aging. The predictors for home-dwelling older adults were education, living arrangement, and dignity. More negative attitudes to aging were found in older adults with lower levels of education (β = 2.716, P = 0.007) who lived alone (β = 2.163, P = 0.046) and rated their dignity as low (β = -0.325, P <0.0001).

The results of this study add to the understanding that a sense of dignity is an important predictor of attitudes to aging for both home-dwelling older adults and inpatients.