responding group, in general, managed well in performing self-care activities. Self-care agency, assessed by ASA, was closely related to the concept of self-care ability. Never- theless, these constructs also have important differences. In Orem’s self-care deficit theory (21), self-care agency consists of self-care activity in addition to self-care ability. The term ‘agency’ reflects the person’s action repertoire, including understanding, estimation and production of self-care actions needed to be performed to maintain self- care in specific and altered situations (21). In that sense, the estimations and actions are goal directed. Self-care ability, on the other hand, may be conceptualized as a necessary condition for self-care actions (6). The significant relationship between these two concepts in the current study, also illuminated in the logistic regression analysis, highlights the close association between the potential for, and the actual performance of, self-care actions.
Nevertheless, a minor part of the study sample reported lower self-care ability, and lower perceptions of both self- care ability and self-care agency were clearly related to more advanced age. These results are consistent with several other studies (6, 43, 44). Older people’s self-reports of severe disability increase with age, and their expecta- tions of good health, functioning and performance