An analysis of structural relationship among achievement motive on social participation, purpose in life, and role expectations among community dwelling elderly attending day services

Background. Achievement motive is defined as the intention to achieve one’s goals. Achievement motive is assumed to promote clients to choices and actions toward their valuable goal, so it is an important consideration in rehabilitation. Purpose. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the structural relationship among achievement motive on purpose in life, social participation, and role expectation of community-dwelling elderly people. Methods. Participants were community-dwelling elderly people in day-service centers. A total of 281 participants (male: 127, female: 154) answered the self-administered questionnaire in cross-sectional research. The questionnaire was comprised of demographic data and scales that evaluated achievement motive, social participation, purpose in life, and role expectation. We studied the structural relationship established by our hypothesized model via a structural equation modeling approach. Results. We checked the standardized path coefficients and the modification indices; the modified model’s statistics were a good fit: CFI = 0.984, TLI = 0.983, RMSEA = 0.050, 90% CI [0.044–0.055]. Achievement motive had a significantly direct effect on purpose in life (direct effect = 0.445, p value < 0.001), a significantly indirect effect on purpose in life via social participation or role expectation (indirect effect = 0.170, p value < 0.001) and a total effect on purpose in life (total effect = 0.615). Discussion. This result suggests that enhancing the intention to achieve one’s goals enables participants to feel a spirit of challenge with a purpose and a sense of fulfillment in their daily lives.