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Having a Higher Purpose in Life Reduces Risk of Death Among Older Adults

Possessing a greater purpose in life is associated with lower mortality rates among older adults according to a new study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center published in Psychosomatic Medicine.
 
Patricia A. Boyle, PhD, and her colleagues from the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center studied 1,238 community-dwelling elderly participants from two ongoing research studies, the Rush Memory and Aging Project and the Minority Aging Research Study. None had dementia. Data from baseline evaluations of purpose in life and up to five years of follow-up were used to test the hypothesis that greater purpose in life is associated with a reduced risk of mortality among community-dwelling older persons.
 
After adjusting for age, sex, education, and race, a higher purpose of life was associated with a substantially reduced risk of mortality. Thus, a person with high purpose in life was about one half as likely to die over the follow-up period compared with a person with low purpose. The association of purpose in life with mortality did not differ among men and women or whites and blacks, and the finding persisted even after controlling for depressive symptoms, disability, neuroticism, the number of medical conditions, and income. During the study period, 151 participants died.
 
“The finding that purpose in life is related to longevity in older persons suggests that aspects of human flourishing—particularly the tendency to derive meaning from life’s experiences and possess a sense of intentionality and goal-directedness—contribute to successful aging,” says Boyle.
 
The researchers note that knowledge of the relationship of purpose of life with other demographic characteristics is limited and future studies are needed to examine whether the association of purpose of life with mortality might be modified by other variables not measured in this study, such as how religious a participant may be. In addition, researchers suggest that future studies should examine whether purpose in life can be enhanced in older persons with interventions.
 
— Source: Rush University Medical Center