EVERYDAY COMPETENCE IN OLD AND VERY OLD-AGE - AN INTERDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE

In the present paper the focus is on structural aspects of everyday co mpetence and its relationship with various personal resources, such as health, social status, self concept and cognition. The findings suppo rt the hypothesis that two distinct, albeit intercorrelated, component s of everyday competence are differentially related to the various res ources examined in this paper. The two components are a basic level of competence (BaCo) which is defined mainly by self-care related activi ties, and an expanded level of competence (ExCo) associated mostly wit h leisure and social activities and advanced instrumental activities o f daily living. In general, BaCo is more strongly related to health-re lated resources, and ExCo is more strongly associated with behavioural , psychological and social resources. 90.6% of the reliable variance i n ExCo and 82.4% in BaCo are explained by these selected resources. Fu rthermore, all of the age-related variance in everyday competence is a ccounted for by these health-related and sociobehavioural resources.