Psychological Well-Being in the Elderly: The Role of Self-Compassion and Alexithymia

Psychological well-being decreases in the elderly, which in turn may affect the risk of disease. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the psychological well-being of the elderly and identify the factors associated with it. Accordingly, the present study was to consider the role of self-compassion and alexithymia in the psychological well-being of the elderly. The method of the present study was descriptive-correlational. The statistical population included all the elderly living in nursing homes of Qazvin in the summer of 2020, among whome 92 people were selected using convenience sampling based on Krejcie and Morgan table. They completed the self-compassion scale (Neff), alexithymia scale (Bagbi et al.) and psychological well-being scale-short form (Ryff). Pearson’s correlation coefficient and multiple linear regression test were used to analyze the data in SPSS software version 24 at the significance level of 0.05. The results showed that there was a direct and significant relationship between self-compassion (r=0.8) and its components with psychological well-being (P<0.01), as well as a significant inverse relationship between alexithymia (r=-0.777) and its components with psychological well-being (P<0.01). Besides, alexithymia and self-compassion explained 75.3% of the variance of psychological well-being. Therefore, counsellors and psychologists working in the field of elderly are recommended to enhance the psychological well-being of the elderly through using measures for the improvement of their self-compassion and the decrease of their alexithymia.