Open AccessSelf-compassion as predictor of daily physical symptoms and chronic illness across older adulthood
Author(s) -
Heather Herriot,
Carsten Wrosch
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of health psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.716
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1461-7277
pISSN - 1359-1053
DOI - 10.1177/13591053211002326
Subject(s) - self compassion , physical illness , psychology , medicine , clinical psychology , gerontology , physical activity , illness behavior , psychiatry , cognition , mindfulness , physical therapy
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.