Life experiences of aged 85 years old and over individulas: An oral historical study (Example of Muğla)

The aim of this research is to reveal the socio-cultural factors that enable individuals aged 85 and over to live longer in the example of Muğla province, and to draw a theoretical framework that will reveal the socio-cultural reasons for longevity. It is very important to reveal the socio-cultural reasons for longevity in Muğla, which is an elderly friendly city with a life expectancy of 2 years above Turkey's average. In this direction, the subject of our research is to reveal the factors underlying the longevity of individuals aged 85 and over. When the studies in the literature are examined, there is no such study in Muğla, although there is an extremely limited study based on empirical studies for individuals aged 85 and over. The research was carried out with individuals aged 85 and over in the advanced elderly category living in Muğla. In the literature part of the study, the concept of old age, the theories of old age, the prolongation of life expectancy and the subject of long life, which is a matter of curiosity with the increase in life expectancy, are mentioned. The qualitative methodology was used in this study. Based on this, oral history interviews were conducted with 50 interviewees. Simultaneously with these interviews, the data was coded using the grounded theory approach during the analysis of the data. As a result, five themes, titled "Peaceful and Stress-Free Life", "Ordinary Life", "Problems and Difficulties", "Free Time" and "Self-Development", were created with the coding created in line with the data obtained from the individuals interviewed. These themes were analyzed in detail in the analysis section and a theoretical model on longevity was presented by evaluating the results.