Gender roles, age, income and social support interacted with physical and emotional health, and with the continuity of social participation of elderly caregivers. Special attention must be given to male caregivers.

Objectives: To investigate the meanings attributed by the elderly to healthy aging and to being happy in old age, and the associations between these meanings and the evaluations of the elderly individuals of their overall and domain-referenced satisfaction. Method: A crosssectional and multicenter study was performed. The verbal utterances of representative samples of community-dwelling elderly persons (N=1,242, aged 65 years and older) registered in the databases of two Brazilian cities, were submitted to content analysis and compared with satisfaction indicators, considering gender, age and family income. Results: Four themes and 14 categories explained the two concepts: physical health and functioning (42.1% of utterances), psychological well-being (25.4%), interpersonal relationships (23.5%) and material resources and access to health services (9.0%). No significant differences were observed for the prevalence ratios between the categories of meaning and great satisfaction with life, with the exception of satisfaction and pleasure. Conclusion: The two concepts raised common meanings associated with positive aspects of old age and had an impact on satisfaction ratings, showing that healthy and happy aging is more than just being healthy, but also involves psychological well-being and interpersonal relationships.

This comparative, cross-

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