wellness across the life span or among older adult populations were included in this review. Articles were excluded during the screening due to (a) the population being addressed not including older adults; (b) not addressing the concept of wellness; (c) being duplicative of an article found in another database; or (d) focusing on measurement development.
Of the 168 articles initially identified as relevant to this search, 47 met inclusion criteria. Manual searches were also conducted of those articles meeting inclu- sion criteria through which an additional 10 articles were identified. A final sample of 53 articles was included in the analysis from nursing (31), social psy- chology (11), medicine (6), physical therapy (1), and occupational therapy (1) spanning more than five decades. This represents more than 20% of the total population of articles initially retrieved, thus meeting Rodger’s (2000) standard for adequate literature sam- pling. Articles used in this review ranged in focus from conceptual definitions to theory descriptions, inter- vention testing, program implementation, descriptive research, and literature review.
Data Analysis
Articles were numbered and labeled to identify both the discipline of the primary author and article format. A historical time line was created to trace the evolution of the wellness concept and its operational- ization. Data from the sample of articles were abstracted and organized into tables categorized as: (a) defining attributes; (b) antecedents; and (c) conse- quences. Verbatim statements from each author were placed into the tables. An inductive analysis of well- ness in older adults produced descriptive themes (Figure 2) as well as related concepts.