Relationship Between Basic Psychological Needs and Mental Vitality in the Elderly

Abstract

*Mehdi Arabzadeh 1 Objectives Subjective vitality refers to a positive feeling of aliveness and energy. This condition is impor-tant in the aging period; therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between basic psychological needs with subjective vitality in the elderly. Methods & Materials It is a functional and cross-sectional study. The research sample included 235 elderly who were selected by convenience sampling method. The participants completed the subjective vital-ity and basic psychological needs scales. To conduct the necessary descriptive and inferential statistical operations, SPSS (Version 23) was used. Mean and standard deviation were utilized to analyze the data in the descriptive statistics section, and in inferential statistics section, step-by-step multiple regressions were used to predict subjective vitality. Results The results showed that subjective vitality has a positive and meaningful relationship with au-tonomy (P<0.01, r=0.60), competence (P<0.01, r=0.53), and relatedness (P<0.01, r=0.58) in the elderly population. Also, the basic psychological needs can be explained by 31% of variance subjective vitality in elderly people. Conclusion The basic psychological needs are considered as an important factor for maintaining subjec-tive vitality in the elderly. Therefore, understanding the basic psychological needs and strengthening these factors can be an effective method for enhancing the subjective vitality of elderly people. Extended Abstract 1. Objectives lderliness is a sensitive period in human life in which individuals are exposed to potential threats, such as increased chronic illness, loneliness and isolation, and lack of social support. Due to their physical and mental incapability, their individual indepen-dence is threatened in many cases. Therefore, the present study aims at addressing the issues related to sensitivity and vulnerability of the elderly group. The study also ad-dresses the important issue of mental vitality and fulfilling their basic psychological needs. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to anticipate and explain mental vitality of the elderly based on their basic psychological needs. In other words, is the study aimed to answer the basic ques-tion: which of the essential psychological needs plays a greater role in anticipating mental vitality in the elderly? The response to this question is of great help for those who are active in the field of aging-related studies.