Indices of Well-being of Older Adults: A Study Amongst Institutionalized and Non-institutionalized Elderly

The present study was planned to assess and compare the general well-being of institutionalized and non-institutionalized elderly. A battery of general well-being measures was created. The battery included Hindi versions of Beck Depression Scale (Mathur, 1981), Goldberg Health Questionnaire-12 (Mohal, 1991), Self­esteem Inventory (Thomas & Raj, 1984), and Life Satisfaction Scale (Mohal, 1991). A Distressed Sleep Checklist was especially created for the present study. It was administered to 371 elderly (171 institutionalized, and 200 non-institutionalized; 200 women and 171 men) aged above 60 years. Global score of well-being was obtained by adding reciprocals of scores on depression, GHQ-12, and distressed sleep to the sum of scores on self-esteem inventory and life satisfaction scale. Two- way ANOVA was applied to analyze the results for global score as well as for separate scores on each measure. Findings revealed that men scored higher on general well­ being as compared to women. The institutionalized aged did not differ from the non-institutionalized on global scores, however, they had less depression and self-esteem than the non-institutionalized.