The aging of parents results in changes in the filial relationship. The increasing vulnerability of parents leads adult children to realize that they have individual needs and cannot fully function as sources of security and protection, as they did before. Simultaneously, the evidence of losses and disability imposes the need for care, which tends to be assumed by adult children. Therefore, there is a progressive change in the volume of support exchanges between parents and children, with more support from adult children to parents. The way adult children adapt to these transitions is influenced by several internal and relational factors. Filial maturity has been associated with filial caregiving towards aging parents. The concept of filial maturity describes a developmental stage in which the adult child overcomes the filial crisis, realizing and accepting that the parent also needs support and comfort and starting to relate to him/her beyond the strictly parental role. Thus, this study aims to explore the role of attachment and mental representation of caregiving in filial maturity. A total of 304 children aged between 35 and 64 years old participated in this study, with at least one of the living parents aged 65 years or older, not institutionalized. Attachment was assessed with the Adult Attachment Scale, mental representation of caregiving with the Mental Representations of Caregiving Scale and filial maturity with the Filial Maturity Measure. The results suggest that attachment, mental representation of caregiving and the interaction between the two explain 24.5% (p < 0.01) of variability in Comprehending and 11.1% (p < 0.05) of variability in Distance, two dimensions of filial maturity. These findings suggest that it is important to consider mental representation of caregiving and attachment when adult children must adapt to changes in the filial relationship and to the need to care for parents.

Objective: The present study aimed to analyze quality of life (QoL) in participants of community intervention programs (CIP) focused on healthy aging. Method : A multicenter cross-sectional study was carried out with 304 community-dwelling participants, aged 55 years old or more and living in three locations in Portugal. Half of these individuals (n=152) were involved in a CIP (intervention group). The intervention group was paired according to sex and age group with an equivalent number of participants (n=152) that did not take part in a CIP (comparison group). Activities implemented in the CIP were grouped according to their nature: socio-recreational, educational/lifelong learning and physical activity. Data collection involved a Social Participation Questionnaire, the WHOQOL-Bref and the Satisfaction With Life Scale. Results: The CIP participants (n=152) had a mean age of 71.4 years (±5.4), were predominantly women (75.0%), married (65.4%), with fewer than five years of education (71.7%) and a monthly family income of up to 750 euros (47.4%). The intervention group had a significantly higher QoL in the physical domain than the comparison group (p<0.03). Physical activity was the most frequently attended session in the CIP (n=119, 78.3%), in comparison with educational/lifelong learning (n=46, 30.3%) and socio-recreational (n=25, 16.4%) activities. People practicing physical activity in the CIP had a significantly higher QoL in the psychological, social relationships and environment domains (p<0.05). Conclusion: Participation in the CIP was associated with QoL. Therefore, in line with the active aging framework, CIPs must be a part of public policy measures aimed at the QoL of the population.

Objectives: Human aging is a multidirectional, multidimensional, and multicausal process that reflects biological, psychological, and sociocultural influences, which act in distinct combinations throughout the life-span. Proactivity towards avoiding the usual aging process is needed. This study analyses the long-term effects of participation in Community-Based Programs on psychological well-being. Method: A sample of 150 community-dwelling participants enrolled in Community-Based Programs, aged 55 to 84 years and living in three Portuguese localities were matched by age (55–64, 65–74, 75–84 years), gender, and locality with a comparison group of non-participants. We administered a multidimensional gerontological protocol which included socio-demographic information, measures of health/disease, functional ability, social network, cognitive performance and psychological well-being. Hierarchical regression models were used to test the effects of Community-Based Programs on psychological well-being adjusting for remaining variables. Results: Overall, psychological well-being is positively associated with household income and satisfaction with health. Nevertheless, in participants, psychological well-being builds predominantly upon social network and is not associated with a moderate inability or cognitive deficits, contrasting with psychological well-being in non-participants. After adjusting for background variables, psychological well-being was positively associated with health satisfaction and social network and negatively related to moderate inability. Further, a significant interaction of participation in Community-Based Programs with age, points out higher levels of psychological well-being in participants contrasting with a downward trend in non-participants. After stratification by age, psychological well-being increases with time attending Community-Based Programs in the oldest (75–84 years) contrasting with the remainder. Conclusions: Participation in Community-Based Programs may improve the negative effects of the aging process on psychological well-being. This positive effect as age increases may be linked to a reinforcement of social network, valued more by participants in Community-Based Programs. Furthermore, the programs may act as a healing/maintenance strategy in persons with moderate inability and/or cognitive deficits.

Human development is a bidirectional, person-context relational process, but scarce evidence is available about the relation between the individual variability across the life-span and the neighborhood ecological assets. Therefore, it is important that research focus not only on personal characteristics but on ecological assets as well. This way this study aims to analyze the association between neighborhood ecological assets categorized into 4 dimensions: human, physical or institutional, social or collective activity, accessibility, and the individual functioning. A 3% sample of residents aged 65 years and older in 2 downtown and 3 uptown parishes stratified by age and sex was interviewed at home using a protocol that included the Portuguese version of the Barthel Index in basic activities of daily living (BADL), the Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale (IADL), the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Geriatric Depression Scale-15 items (GDS) for evaluating functionality, cognitive performance and depression. The 162 participants were aged on average 75y (sd=7.0), 54% were women and 90% had less than 7 years of education. The majority of participants were independent in BADL (M=90; sd=17.7) and moderately dependent in IADL (M=13, sd=6.0), 20% showed cognitive impairment and a mean score of 8 (sd=2.1) in GDS-15. After controlling for the effect of socio-demographic characteristics, functionality and cognitive performance decreases in persons with worst outdoor mobility. On the other hand depressive symptoms are less common as the number of recreation opportunities, namely associative groups (cultural, educative, professional), increases. These results suggest that aging policies and practices must be ecologically embedded.

Adult children may experience filial anxiety when anticipating the need to care for their aging parents. To investigate the extent to which attachment and mental representation of caregiving predict filial anxiety, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 304 middle-age adults with at least one living parent aged 65 or more. Results suggest that the variance in filial anxiety is mainly accounted for by the mental representation of caregiving and then by attachment. These findings suggest that mental representation of caregiving and attachment are important dimensions to consider when adult children feel unprepared and worried with the need to care for their aging parents.

RESUMO Um dos contextos de envelhecimento é o lar de idosos, mas pouca atenção tem sido dedicada ao processo de institucionalização, particularmente numa perspectiva desenvolvimental e ecológica. Assim, desenhamos um estudo qualitativo com o objectivo de explorar a experiência de transição e adaptação ao lar de 15 idosos institucionalizados há mais de um ano. Os participantes foram entrevistados e a análise de conteúdo permitiu identificar um tema comum - Vivência da Institucionalização, que integra três domínios: Tomada de decisão, Processo de institucionalização, e Posicionamento face à institucionalização. Os resultados sugerem que a institucionalização constitui uma transição que nem sempre resulta em adaptação e que o envolvimento do idoso na tomada de decisão e as características ambientais são fundamentais neste processo.