Factor Structure of Coping Behavior in Elderly People Taking Geronto-Educational Programs

Research aimed at increasing the social adaptation and productivity of retirees is of theoretical and practical significance due to the growing share of elderly people in Russia’s total population. The relevance of this study is due to the contradiction between the theoretical and practical significance of the problem of coping behavior in elderly people and its insufficient development in gerontopsychology. The goal of this paper is a theoretical substantiation, identification, and discussion of the results of factor analysis of the structure of coping behavior in subjects of geronto-educational programs. Theoretical and empirical methods and psychodiagnostic techniques, such as Heim’s Coping Technique, Lazarus and Folkman’s Coping Questionnaire (adapted by T. Kryukova and E. Kuftyak), Maddi’s Hardiness Survey (adapted by D. Leontyev), and Vodopyanova and Stein’s Scale of Optimism and Activity, were used. The following methods of mathematical and statistical analysis were applied: descriptive statistics, Pearson’s chi-square test, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and principal component analysis with Varimax rotation with Kaiser normalization; the statistical software package StatSoft Statistica for Windows 10.0 and IBM SPSS Statistics 23 was also used. The empirical research was carried out at the University for Elderly, the regional branch of the National Nongovernmental Organization Znanie in Chelyabinsk, Russia. The sample comprised 101 individuals with an average age of 68.2 years. The factor analysis detected and verified a latent structure of coping behavior in the elderly consisting of seven key components classified by the degree of preference. The factor structure of coping behavior in the subjects is dominated by adaptive and relatively adaptive behavioral and cognitive coping styles (based on three of the seven factors) that are both problem- and self-preservation-oriented.