"Enriching the golden time" - a study about time and goals, and their effects on depression in later life

Abstract

Goals play an important part in human development and are interrelated with future time perspective. What is less clear is whether a short future time perspective leads to poor mental wellbeing. This mixed methods study addressed the question of the relationship between goals, future time perspective and depression in later life. The first study strand (Study One) deployed an online- and paper questionnaire with a total of 76 older adults aged 65 and above from the United Kingdom. The survey contained questions about sociodemographic variables, Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the Motivational-Induction-Method (MIM) to measure and classify future time perspective and goals. Crosstabulations and Mann-Whitney U Tests were conducted to analyse the sample. The results show that depression in this sample does not increase in later life and that older adults with extended future time perspective (>1 year)
have more goals than older adults with limited future time perspective. However, the hypothesis that having both limited future time perspective and fewer goals in later life led to subthreshold depression was not confirmed. The second study strand (Study Two) used a qualitative research design to explore how perceived future time perspective impacts older people’s views about their own goals. Using Thematic Analysis, four themes were created from the interviews with 18 older adults. The first two themes explored the impact health, ageing, and retirement have on goals and future time perspective, while the last two themes describe the adaptation strategies participants used to navigate the impacts they experienced. This study offers insights into how health, ageing, and retirement shape older adults' perceptions of their goals and future time perspective, while examining their adaptation to the changing circumstances of later life. Despite a limited future time perspective, participants showed a diverse range of goals. The findings reveal how older adults adjust their goals in response to health changes and retirement, employing different strategies to focus on meaningful goals. Although the hypothesis linking a limited future time perspective and fewer goals to subthreshold depression was not supported, the research underscores that experiences of losses are not necessarily associated with depressive symptoms. These findings highlight the importance of present-focused strategies in enabling older adults to navigate later life effectively, contributing to a better understanding of adaptation in later life.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Christoph Heuser: orcid.org/0000-0002-7235-097X

ORCID for Rosalind Willis: orcid.org/0000-0001-6687-5799

ORCID for Elisabeth Schroeder-Butterfill: orcid.org/0000-0002-5071-8710

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