Rola rozwoju potraumatycznego w podejmowaniu zachowań zdrowotnych u osób w okresie późnej dorosłości

The aim of the study was to establish the role of posttraumatic growth for health behaviors of people in late adulthood period. The analyzed research group was 130 people in the age of 61-88 lat (M = 71,32; SD = 5,81), 60 were men (46,2% ) and 70 (53,8%) women. The group consisted of 70 generally healthy people – the participants of the Third Age University, and 60 patients of cardiology clinic. The research tools were Health Behaviors Inventory authored by Juczynski (2001) – to measure health behaviors, and Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (authored by Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996), in polish adaptation of Ogińskia-Bulik and Juczyński (2010)) – to measure posttraumatic growth. The responded seniors exhibited an average level of posttraumatic growth and above-average level of health behaviors. Age did not differentiated the level of health behaviors. Gender and type of traumatic experience were associated with health behaviors. The correlation and regression analysis confirmed the role of gender, type of trauma and posttraumatic growth indicators in manifesting health behaviors by seniors. The importance of posttraumatic growth in predicting health behaviors was different depending on the category of health-related behaviors.