Citation

McKee KJ, Milner C. J. Health Psychol. 2000; 5(4): 473-486.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/135910530000500406

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Fear of crime is thought to limit social activity in older people. Sixty older people, recruited via day centres, were given questionnaire-based interviews. A series of questions produced two scales of crime awareness and a scale of perceived crime prevalence. Fear of crime was operationalized through a catastrophizing technique, and by a single-item measure of perceived safety. Physical health, mental health and psychosocial limitation were assessed. Physical health was found to moderate a relationship between crime awareness and fear of crime. In multivariate models, fear of crime was not a significant predictor of psychosocial limitation, which was predicted by physical and mental health. Implications of the findings for models of fear of crime and health psychology are discussed.

Language: en