Abstract

HILARIO CASTILLO, María Abigail; CELESTINO SOTO, Mirtha Idalia; SALAZAR-GONZALEZ, Bertha Cecilia  and  CRUZ QUEVEDO, Juana Edith. Possible selves and perceived health by a group of elders in Monterrey, Mexico. Index Enferm [online]. 2010, vol.19, n.1, pp.19-23. ISSN 1699-5988.

Objective: to know the relation between possible selves (hopes and fears) and actions expressed by a group of elders from a metropolitan area of Monterrey, Mexico and their perceived health. Methods: descriptive design; with 80 community dwelling elders with mean age 70.59 ± 6.82 years old. It was applied to the Mini mental State Examination as a screening test, the SF-12 questionnaire and five semi structured questions inquiring about their general hopes, fears and related actions. Results: at least one health related hope and one fear was identified by 96.3% and 81.4% respectively. At least one action to avoid fears coming true was mentioned by 56.4%. Perceived health was related to actions to pursue hopes (r_s=.279, p< .05), and to avoid health fears (r_s=.242, p< .05). Conclusions: no relation was found between possible selves and perceived health, in contrast both actions to purse hopes and to avoid fears were significant related to better health.

Keywords : Possible selves; Perceived health; Elderly.