Abstract

Objectives

To investigate whether latent subgroups with distinct patterns of factors associated with self-rated successful aging can be identified in community-dwelling adults, and how such patterns obtained from analysis of quantitative data are associated with lay perspectives on successful aging obtained from qualitative responses.

Methods

Cross-sectional data were collected from 1,510 community-dwelling Americans aged 21–99 years. Latent class regression was used to identify subgroups that explained the associations of self-rated successful aging with measures of physical, cognitive, and mental health as well as psychological measures related to resilience and wisdom. Natural language processing was used to extract important themes from qualitative responses to open-ended questions, including the participants’ definitions of successful aging.

Results

Two latent subgroups were identified, and their main difference was that the wisdom scale was positively associated with self-rated successful aging in only one subgroup. This subgroup had significantly lower self-rated successful aging and worse scores for all health and psychological measures. In the subgroup’s qualitative responses, the theme of wisdom was only mentioned by 10.6%; this proportion was not statistically different from the other subgroup, for which the wisdom scale was not statistically associated with the self-rated successful aging.

Conclusion

Our results showed heterogeneous patterns in the factors underpinning successful aging even in community-dwelling adults. We found the existence of a latent subgroup with lower self-rated successful aging as well as worse health and psychological scores, and we suggest a potential role of wisdom in promoting successful aging for this subgroup, even though individuals may not explicitly recognize wisdom as important for successful aging.

中文翻译：

---

1,510 名居住在社区的美国人中，具有与自评成功老龄化相关的不同因素模式的潜在亚群：智慧作为隐性促进者的潜在作用

摘要

目标

调查是否可以在社区居住的成年人中识别出与自评成功老龄化相关的具有不同模式因素的潜在亚组，以及通过定量数据分析获得的这些模式如何与从定性反应中获得的对成功老龄化的外行观点相关联。

方法

横断面数据收集自 1,510 名年龄在 21-99 岁之间居住在社区的美国人。潜在类别回归用于识别亚组，这些亚组解释了自评成功衰老与身体、认知和心理健康指标以及与弹性和智慧相关的心理指标之间的关联。使用自然语言处理从对开放式问题的定性回答中提取重要主题，包括参与者对成功老龄化的定义。

结果

确定了两个潜在亚组，它们的主要区别在于，只有一个亚组的智慧量表与自评成功老龄化呈正相关。该亚组的成功老龄化自我评价显着较低，所有健康和心理指标的得分也较差。在分组的定性回答中，只有10.6%的人提到了智慧的主题；这一比例与其他亚组没有统计学差异，其他亚组的智慧量表与自评成功老龄化没有统计学相关性。

结论

我们的研究结果显示，即使在社区居住的成年人中，支撑成功老龄化的因素也存在异质模式。我们发现存在一个潜在的亚群，其自评成功老龄化程度较低，健康和心理评分也较差，并且我们建议智慧在促进该亚群成功老龄化方面的潜在作用，尽管个人可能没有明确认识到智慧的重要性成功老龄化。