Life regrets and pride among low-income older adults: Relationship with depressive symptoms, current life stressors and coping resources

Abstract

We examined the contents and intensities of both life regrets and pride among a convenience sample of 213 low-income older adults and the associations between the contents and intensities of life regrets and pride, on the one hand, and the older adults’ current life stressors, coping resources and depressive symptoms, on the other. Regrets about education, career and marriage were common, but intensities of regrets were higher for issues related to finance/money, family conflict and children's problems, loss and grief, and health. Common sources of pride were related to children and parenting, career, volunteering/informal caregiving, long/strong marriage and personal growth/self. Controlling for current life stressors of disability, money worries, loneliness and overdependence on others for management of daily life, and coping resources of social support and religiosity, the intensities of loss-and-grief related regrets and the pride in long/strong marriage were significant predictors of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) scores. However, the regrets and pride explained a small amount of the variance in the GDS scores, while the current life stressors explained a large portion of the variance.