Extremely meaningful lived events linking to survivorship

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine extremely meaningful lived events recalled by centenarians. Data for this study originated from N = 111 centenarians (n = 43 men; n = 68 women) who participated in Oklahoma 100-year Life Project from May 1, 2013 through May 1, 2016. Mean age was M = 101.44; SD = 2.87 years. All participants were screened for cognitive health status using the Mini-Mental Status Examination-SF (MMSE-SF; M = 12.55; SD = 1.55) to ensure intact memory recall. Hierarchical mapping was used to collect N = 654 (M = 6.90; SD = 2.61) total meaningful lived events reported by centenarians. IBM/SPSS 23.0 was used to analyze data. Lived events like work/employment (18.9%), marriage (13.9%) and child birth (10.6%) seemed to be extremely meaningful events for centenarians. Centenarian women reported a greater proportion of total meaningful events compared to male centenarians (60% versus 40%). Distal life both men and women compared to more recent life events (after turning 60 years) X2 (1, N = 648) = 24.620, p < 0.01. However, centenarian women recalled a significantly greater number of both distal and proximal life events compared to men X2 (1, N = 648) = 13.502, p < 0.01. A good proportion of centenarians (40.5%) acknowledged younger-adulthood as being the most meaningful developmental period of life, X2 (3, N = 654) = 33.396, p < 0.01. Centenarian women recalled a significantly greater number of life events during their younger-adulthood period as compared to men X2 (3, N = 654) = 19.607, p < 0.01. Findings from this study have implications relative to understanding the variation of lived experiences considered meaningful among centenarians. Such information is useful for developing recreational and reminiscence therapies to help improve quality-of-life for long-lived adults.