Determination of factors affecting active aging levels of elderly

In this research, by considering the understanding of active aging offered as a solution by international organizations against the problem of social aging in the world; It was aimed to determining the active aging levels of the elderly and examining the factors affecting active aging. Also, by developing a model of some personal and social environmental factors affecting active aging; It was aimed to determine the effect of social networks, psychological resilience and loneliness on the active aging level of the elderly. In this context, 280 elderly people aged 65 and over, living in Ankara participated in the study, which was carried out with the quantitative data collection method. In data analysis, descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, one-way anova test and path analysis were used for model testing. According to the results of the research, the mean active aging score of the elderly is 176.93 (±51.36). The mean score of goals subscale, the mean score is 49.49 (±14.27), the mean score of functional capacity subscale is 51.18 (±14.76), the mean score of opportunities subscale is 38,81(±13.29) and the mean score of activitiy subscale is 37.46 (±13.10). The elderly participating in the research want to do activities that determine active aging and they see the functional capacity to do these activities. However, the perceived opportunities of the elderly to perform activities and the activities they actually do are at a lower level compared to their goals and functional capacities. There is a statistically significant difference between the active aging level of the elderly and gender, perceived income, employment, education, marital status, perceived health, regular exercise and using alcohol (p<0.05). According to the model of some personal and social environmental factors affecting active aging developed in the research, social networks affect active aging positively and loneliness affect active aging negatively. In addition, according to the model, it was determined that loneliness can plays a mediating role in the effect of resilience measurement on the active aging level of the elderly. When the model is compared in terms of socio-demographic variables; gender, education, marital status, health status, grandchild care, seminar, conference, training etc. participation were found to be statistically significant (p<0.05).