Negative life events and cognitive performance in a population of older adults.
OBJECTIVE
This study examined the association between negative life events in the past year and cognitive performance in a population of older adults.


METHODS
Secondary data analysis was conducted on 428 participants from the Charlotte County Healthy Aging Study. Participants completed tests of episodic memory, attention, and psychomotor speed and endorsed the presence and severity of 24 life events. Life events were examined in the aggregate as well as individually.


RESULTS
Hierarchical multiple regression results suggest no significant relationship between the aggregate frequency and severity measures of negative life events and cognitive performance. At the individual-event level, individuals who experienced the injury or illness of a friend during the past year and rated it as having more of an effect on their lives performed better on all three cognitive tasks. However, individuals who reported having less money to live on over the past year and rated the event as having more of an effect on their lives performed more poorly on the psychomotor speed tasks.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings support previous research indicating that using estimates of individual stressors rather than aggregate stress measures increases the predictive validity of stress measurement. Furthermore, the individual negative life events can have both a positive and a negative effect, which nullify one another when using the sum score of events.
University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA and Brandeis University, Department of Psychology MS 062, 415 South Street, Waltham, MA 02454 USA; crosnick@brandeis.edu
Christopher B
CB
Rosnick
Brent J
BJ
Small
Cathy L
CL
McEvoy
Amy R
AR
Borenstein
James A
JA
Mortimer
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging; D001288:Attention; D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008875:Middle Aged; D009043:Motor Activity; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States