Stress, Coping and Ageing

SUMMARY While on one hand, when one grows old, one becomes, vulnerable to stresses because fewer resources are available, ageing an the other hand confers certain advantages in coping with stresses in life. Illness as a stress taxes considerable energy and efforts from the elderly in coping with it. Systematic studies in Chinese are few and far between. Empirical research in this regard is in want. Keywords: stress, coping, ageing, Chinese STRESSES AT OLD AGE In general, life is characterised by a multiplicity of stresses. People react to these stresses with their own clusters of defense mechanisms or coping skills. As a result, these protective mechanisms determine the amount of strain an individual experiences and the subsequent likelihood of its expression as psycho-pathology. In particular, old age is marked by the presence of a wide range of stressors. The older person is often subject to biological deterioration, social extrusion, and economic deprivation. The course of events at this period of lifespan is such that these traumas may occur in rapid succession without allowing the person time to regain his balance before confronting the next stressor. Even taken individually, particular stressors will separately dictate an array of coping mechanisms for successful outcomes. Evans (1984) draws on a number of studies to suggest that adverse life events occur more frequently in old age and that their occurrence causally increases the prevalence of illness in old age. As the elderly population encounters these and other loss events, resolution of life events may be hampered by their relative social status in relation to younger age groups. Dowd (1980) has argued that social exchange between young and older age groups is characterised by an imbalance in the exchange ratio which effectively places the elderly in a double bind, namely, that declining resources in old age entails negotiating from weakness at a time when resources are exchanged for less than they would be for a younger person. Alternatively, it is still possible that older adults actually encounter fewer stressful events than the young (Lowenthal, Thurber & Chiriboga, 1975; George, 1980; Harris, 1989). But the fact remains. many of the stresses of younger adults' lives have pleasant aspects. Leaving home, getting married, having a baby, buying a house, getting a promotion are all stressful, but they also bring challenge and reward. In contrast, many of the stresses of later adulthood are primarily negative: poor health, reduced income, death of a spouse (Chiriboga & Cutler, 1980). In this line of thought, problems in the life of the aged often are conceptualised as divergences from an optimal state of well-being, whether these divergences are caused by health problems, or by loss of social roles, economic resources, or significant others (Atchley, 1989). However, it may in fact be the case that the elderly are particularly prone to experience multiple, albeit low prevalence of, life events, which could act synergistically to cause decline in well-being (Fried & Bush, 1988). None the less, even when elderly people might cope better with loss of a spouse or close relatives, and friends than do younger counterparts, they undoubtedly exhibit greater vulnerability when confronted with certain life events. Notable among these is residential relocation. This has local relevance when we realise there is a booming industry of old-aged home in Hong Kong owing to mass emigration of younger people In recent years (Cheng, 1993). WHY MORE VULNERABLE While the potentially adverse consequences of stress are universal and apply across the lifespan, there are at least several reasons why elderly person are particularly vulnerable. Firstly, relative to younger contemporaries, they are typically confronted with a multitude of major life events following on the heels of each other. …