Abstract
Background:Awareness of positive and negative age-related changes (AARC gains and losses) captures the perceived changes that older individuals experience in several domains of their lives including physical, cognitive and social functioning; interpersonal relationships; and lifestyle. Exploring antecedents of AARC is important to identify those individuals that could benefit the most from interventions promoting positive experiences of ageing and/or adaptation to age-related changes. This study investigates the experience of pain as a predictor of lower AARC gains and higher AARC losses.Methods:Analyses are based on cross-sectional data from the PROTECT cohort (2019); 1013 UK residents (mean (SD; range) age: 65.3 (7.1; 51.4–92) years, 84.4% women) completed measures of AARC and pain and provided demographic information. Linear regression models were fitted to examine pain as a predictor of AARC gains and AARC losses.Results:Higher levels of pain predicted more AARC losses both before (regression coefficient, B = 0.36; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.29 to 0.42, p-value < 0.001; R2 = 0.11) and after adjusting for demographic covariates (B = 0.34; 95% CI: 0.27 to 0.40; p-value < 0.001; Partial R2 = 0.11). Pain was not significantly associated with AARC gains (unadjusted B = 0.05; 95% CI: −0.03 to 0.12, p-value = 0.21; Partial R2 = 0.01).Conclusion:Individuals experiencing pain may perceive more AARC losses. Interventions aiming to decrease levels of pain could include a component targeting self-perceptions of ageing and/or promoting acceptance of the negative changes that can happen with ageing.Statement of significance:The predictive role of greater levels of pain for more negative perceptions of age-related changes extends the literature on the negative psychological outcomes of pain and on predictors of perceived awareness of age-related changes (AARC). As individuals experiencing pain may be more at risk of perceiving their own ageing in a more negative way, they may benefit from interventions that combine strategies to reduce levels of pain and the interference that pain exerts on their daily activities with an educational component enhancing positive self-perceptions of ageing and promoting acceptance of negative age-related changes.
Highlights
Awareness of positive and negative age-related changes (AARC gains and losses) captures the perceived changes that older individuals experience in several domains of their lives including physical, cognitive and social functioning; interpersonal relationships; and lifestyle
This study focuses on an indicator of health that so far has not been explored in association with perceived awareness of age-related changes (AARC): pain
Results from this study suggest that individuals experiencing pain may be at risk of perceiving higher levels of negative age-related changes due to the negative outcomes often associated with pain.The efficacy of interventions promoting adaptation to the experience of pain may be enhanced if perceptions of age-related changes are targeted.[17]
Summary
Awareness of positive and negative age-related changes (AARC gains and losses) captures the perceived changes that older individuals experience in several domains of their lives including physical, cognitive and social functioning; interpersonal relationships; and lifestyle. Chronic pain affects between 35% and 51% of the UK adult population.[6] The wide number of people experiencing poor health may be one of the reasons why many people perceive older age in a negative way.[7] existing research suggests that individuals with poorer current and/or past physical health report more negative experiences of ageing.[8,9] so far studies have explored the predictive role of physical health on bimodal measures of perceptions of ageing; using this approach, a person can report either positive or negative self-perceptions of ageing, but not both. Perceived AARC gains are fairly independent from perceived AARC losses; correlations between perceived gains and losses are small and positive.[11]
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