title: Daily activity and life satisfaction in older people living in rural contexts.
abstract: This study is aimed at exploring daily and desired activity patterns in a sample of older people living in a rural context, as well as at examining the effect of some influential factors and their relationships with life satisfaction. Our sample was made of 216 retired people and was recruited from 12 villages from Catalonia and Valencia with populations of less than 1000 inhabitants. Data were gathered by means of an interview that included daily and ideal activities and life satisfaction (by applying the Life Satisfaction Index). Our results show that yesterday's pattern of activities is similar to an ideal pattern, although in the ideal day, our sample allocated more time to social activities and less time to passive activities such as watching TV or resting. In both cases, leisure activities and time spent working seem to play an important role in older people's life. Gender has a remarkable influence on patterns of activity, as women devoted more time to instrumental activities and less time to leisure. In general, differences between yesterday's and ideal activities were not related to life satisfaction.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Psicología Evolutiva i de l'Educació, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain. ctriado@ub.edu
authors.forename: Carme
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Triadó
authors.forename: Feliciano
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Villar
authors.forename: Carme
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Solé
authors.forename: Montserrat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Celdrán
authors.forename: Maria José
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Osuna
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology*; D000368:Aged; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007899:Leisure Activities / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012737:Sex Factors; D012944:Social Support; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013030:Spain; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014937:Work / Q000523:psychology