| Abstract [eng] |
Kamilė Naujalytė. “Association between Chronic Pain and Depressive Symptoms among Older People: the Role of Successful Aging‘‘. Vilnius, Vilnius University, 2024, 60 p. Aim of the study – to investigate whether the relationship between chronic pain and depression experienced by older people can be altered by successful aging, defined by the use of selection, optimization, and compensation strategies. Participants and methods: A total of 106 people experiencing chronic pain participated in the study. Their ages ranged from 65 to 93 years (M = 72,12, SD = 6,39), with 89,6% being female and 10,4% male. The Pain Intensity, Enjoyment of Life, and General Activity Questionnaire (Krebs et al., 2009) was used to assess participants' chronic pain, the Geriatric Depression Scale, short form (Sheikh & Yesavage, 1986) was used to assess depression, and the Selection, Optimization, and Compensation Questionnaire, short form (Freund & Baltes, 2002; Segura–Camacho et al., 2018) was used to assess successful aging. A cross–sectional correlational study was conducted, and both correlational and moderation regression analyses were applied to answer the research question. Results and conclusions: The study results revealed that greater chronic pain in older adults is associated with greater depression. Additionally, successful aging and greater use of its strategies is essentially associated with lower depression. However, only the compensation strategy has an impact on the relationship between chronic pain and depression in the study sample. Using the compensation strategy less, greater chronic pain predicts higher depression, while using compensation more breaks this relationship between chronic pain and depression. Thus, it was found that compensation has a moderating effect, breaking the relationship between chronic pain and depression in older adults. |
