SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING OF ELDERLY WOMEN - CONCEPTUAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CANCER-PATIENTS, WOMEN SUFFERING FROM CHRONIC AILMENTS AND HEALTHY WOMEN

Studies have shown that the mean scores on global subjective well-bein g measures of cancer patients do not differ from the mean scores of ot her patient samples or samples of healthy individuals. These results g ive rise to speculations about the nature of the concept subjective we ll-being. Therefore, we compared the structure of the concept subjecti ve well-being between three groups of elderly women (cancer patients, women suffering from chronic ailments and healthy women). This was don e by examining the relationships between five dimensions of subjective well-being (perceived physical health, self-esteem, negative affect, optimism and loneliness) and two measures of global subjective well-be ing (affective well-being and life satisfaction) in each group of wome n. The results clearly demonstrate the differences in the relative imp ortance of the five dimensions for the global evaluation of well-being between the three groups. The most notable finding was that perceived physical health appears to be more strongly related to global subject ive well-being, when the objective health status is worse. The unequal relative importance of dimensions of subjective well-being should be taken into account when comparing the mean scores on subjective well-b eing measures between populations with different states of health.