Relationship between expectations regarding aging and productive engagement among community-dwelling older adults: a cross-sectional study.

Community-dwelling older adults demonstrated moderate overall expectations regarding aging with a mean score of 42.42 ± 7.36.

• Survey conducted from May 2023 to November 2023 using convenience sampling in a community in southern Minhang District, Shanghai, China.
• Subdomain scores were: physical health 10.11 ± 2.29, mental health 18.37 ± 3.89, cognitive function 6.80 ± 2.30, and functional independence 7.14 ± 2.37.
• Data collection utilized the General Information Questionnaire, Productive Engagement Scale, and the Aging Expectations Scale (ERA-21).
• Data analysis was performed using SPSS 22.0.

Community-dwelling older adults demonstrated a moderate overall productive engagement score of 39.84 ± 6.83.

• Productive engagement comprised three subdomains: family caregiving (39.38 ± 6.55), paid employment (43.90 ± 8.79), and volunteer activities (39.38 ± 6.55).
• Paid employment had the highest subdomain score among the three productive engagement components.
• The authors described the overall productive engagement level as moderate, indicating 'potential for enhancement.'

Significant differences in productive engagement were identified across multiple sociodemographic and behavioral variables.

• Variables showing significant differences included age, marital status, number of children, employment status, living arrangements, income source, monthly income, number of chronic diseases, and activity types (p < 0.05).
• This was a cross-sectional study design, so causal directionality cannot be established.

All four aging expectation subdomains showed positive correlations with productive engagement.

• Positive correlations were observed between productive engagement and all four aging dimensions: physical health, mental health, cognitive function, and functional independence (p < 0.05).
• The correlational analysis was conducted using SPSS 22.0.

Regression analyses identified age as a negative predictor and number of children and all four aging expectation subdomains as significant positive predictors of productive engagement.

• Age was a negative predictor of productive engagement (B = -1.11, p = 0.050).
• Number of children was a positive predictor (B = 1.705, p = 0.004).
• The four aging expectation subdomains were positive predictors with the following coefficients: B = 0.555 (p < 0.001), B = 0.438 (p < 0.001), B = 0.675 (p < 0.005), and B = 0.399 (p < 0.001).
• The specific subdomain-to-coefficient assignments for the four aging expectation dimensions were not individually labeled in the abstract.