With the global growth of the older generation comes the need to consider a population with a longer life expectancy that have an increased hope for a happy and healthy life status. Although an increasing number of countries have developed successful ageing policies and interventions, many theoretical and applicative gaps remain unsolved, particularly in relation to the psychosocial levers that may contribute to engage older people in successful ageing conducts. The mission is to value the useful contribution that the elderly could give to the society, creating the right condition for a successful integration of all the spheres of their lives in the health ageing management. Initiatives that dont’ take into account this integration and the active role of the patients in that process, will not be successful. This research is framed into in a broader project called "Crescere da anziani", and it is articulated into three research phases. The first phase consists in the systematization of the interventions aimed at promoting active aging currently present in the literature. The second phase is aimed at deepen the experience of health management from the senior citizen perspective and the understanding of what conditions (subjective, relational and contextual) encourage their active engagement. The third phase consists in a quantitative analysis of the relations between the engagement and the social-demographic and psychological participants’ characteristics. The document presents a synthetic and critical way the research main findings to the better draw the operational implications for research and intervention in this area.
Keywords: Engagement; elderly people; health promotion; active healthy Ageing