Purpose in Life and Personal Growth: Predictors of Quality of Life in Mexican Elders

Abstract

Pursue goals and dreams throughout life are important to maintain an active life and enjoy it, which turns out to be a mechanism where people adapt to the challenges of the age, also if they are able to use their resources to continue growing as people, all should contribute to a better quality of life. Therefore the aim is to test the predictive value of subjective well-being, their dimensions: purpose in life and personal growth on quality of life of older adults from different entities of Mexico. For that, 582 elderly (mean age = 70.3, SD = 7.5) were individually interviewed, also they answered with their consent informed, the questionnaire Quality of Life (QoL) (WHOQOL-OLD) and the Ryff’s Scale of Subjective Well-Being (SW) with two of its dimensions: Purpose in Life (PiL) and Personal Growth (PG). The results show statistically significant correlations between QoL and PiL ( r = .565, p < .0001), QoL and PG ( r = .442, p < .0001), and QoL and SW ( r = .633, p < .0001). Also the resulting linear regression model with significant coefficients is: PiL ( β = 0.134, p < .038), PG ( β = -0.138, p < .025) and SW ( β = 0.632, p < .0001), value F (3,423) = 99.28, p < .0001 and coefficient R 2 = .413. It is concluded that the purpose in life, personal growth and well-being are predicting a better quality of life of older adults.