Impact of positive health resources on psychological distress in elderly with chronic illness: Revelations from latent profile analysis

This study aimed to identify homogenous positive health resources profiles among the elderly with chronic illnesses and examined their impact on psychological distress. A Purposive sample of 120 elderly participants (60 males and 60 females) of ages varying from 60 years and above, with chronic illness, was administered three measures - Spiritual Index of Well-Being, Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (shortened version-12 items), Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21). The tidy LPA package in R version 4.0.5 for latent profile analysis - a model-based clustering was used in the analysis of data. A three-profile solution provided the best fit for the data. The emerged latent profiles were named as high, moderate, and low positive health resources sub-groups. The high positive health resources sub-group reported significantly lower psychological distress compared to the other two sub-groups. The emerged three latent profiles of the elderly with chronic illness were confounded by the level of education and illness condition.