Applied Research in Quality of Life最新文献

Older volunteers face ongoing psychological and social challenges associated with their roles. As they are valuable assets in an increasingly aging society, the complex psychological mechanisms that shape their life satisfaction warrant further exploration. Grounded in Meaning Management Theory, this study examines the longitudinal impact of Thought Self-leadership (TSL) on life satisfaction among older community volunteers, focusing on the dual mediating roles of resilience and death anxiety. TSL is conceptualized as a key cognitive resource that enables individuals to regulate emotions and construct meaning when confronting existential challenges later in life, thereby enhancing psychological adaptation. A three-wave longitudinal design was employed, with data collected from community volunteers aged 60 and above in Shanghai. A cross-lagged panel model (CLPM) within the structural equation modeling framework was employed to examine the longitudinal relationships and test the hypothesized mediation effects. The results demonstrate that TSL significantly predicts life satisfaction by increasing resilience and reducing death anxiety. This study enriches the empirical application of Meaning Management Theory within the domain of psychological adjustment in later life. It reveals how individuals can leverage TSL to reconstruct their sense of meaning and psychological resources when facing challenges, providing both theoretical insight and practical implications for promoting sustained engagement and well-being among older volunteers.

This study explores the role of dreams as existential arenas for processing trauma and reconstructing meaning in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 terror attacks in Israel. Utilizing a qualitative-phenomenological analysis of 203 dream narratives, the findings illustrate how dreams function as symbolic spaces through which individuals engage with core existential concerns heightened by collective trauma. Four central themes were identified: confrontation with death and affirmation of life; guilt, responsibility, and the struggle for agency; isolation and the yearning for connection; and the movement from chaos toward meaning-making. These themes reflect dynamic psychological and existential tensions, as individuals seek to restore coherence and reclaim agency in the wake of shattered assumptions regarding safety, morality, and belonging. The study further elucidates the mediating role of dreams between personal suffering and broader cultural frameworks, highlighting their potential contribution to processes of existential repair and meaning reconstruction. Clinically, the findings underscore the relevance of incorporating dream material within psychotherapeutic contexts to support individuals exposed to collective trauma grappling with moral injury, disrupted worldviews, and existential distress.

Recently, economists have become increasingly interested in understanding how behavioural indicators explain development outcomes. Using a nationally representative panel survey data in Ghana and employing the pooled logistic and random effects logistic regression methods, this study analyses the relationship between the “Big Five Personality Traits” (i.e., Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability (neuroticism) and Openness to Experience) and individuals’ wellbeing (specifically, happiness and poverty status). The study further examines whether one’s personality traits are significantly associated with the alignment between one’s subjective wellbeing (happiness) and objective wellbeing (poverty status). We found statistically significant relationship between personality traits and wellbeing but with heterogeneities across traits and by the two wellbeing measures. We found further that neuroticism is negatively associated with the alignment of both happiness and poverty statuses of an individual. However, the other personality traits showed no statistically significant relationship with the alignment (or non-alignment) between the subjective and objective measures of wellbeing. These results are robust to alternative regression techniques (specifically, the Heckman Copula and weighted least squares) used to address attrition bias in the study. The key message of the study is that an integrated approach to policymaking which pays attention to the interplay between economic, social, and psychological factors is crucial to overall welfare – reducing poverty and maintaining happiness.

The Circular Economy (CE) offers a pathway to more sustainable consumption and production, requiring product users to engage in CE behaviors, such as recycling, reuse, and repair. Despite these behaviors being essential for sustainability and quality of life, the impact of CE behaviors and adjacent conditions on product users’ well-being (defined here in terms of three outcomes: affective, cognitive, and developmental) remains insufficiently understood. CE behaviors involve several constructs, namely Reduce (e.g., making do), Own (e.g., purchasing high-quality products and repairing), and Access (e.g., renting and sharing), impacting product user well-being through different mechanisms. This literature review identifies: (1) the types of well-being outcomes associated with engagement in CE behaviors; and (2) the specific activities (e.g., repairing and making do) and conditions (e.g., motivation and cost) that influence these outcomes. The findings from the literature review highlight the potential for CE behaviors to enhance well-being and inform the design of effective CE and sustainability strategies. However, the review also reveals problematic aspects with the current state of knowledge, such as the significant variation in well-being constructs employed across studies, complicating direct comparisons and synthesis. This indicates a need for a more comprehensive, unified framework for assessing consumer well-being. Other proposed future research directions include distinguishing the direct effect from the indirect of CE behaviors on well-being.

This research investigates the differential effects of varying levels of social capital—namely, family, peer, and school/workplace social capital. The study focuses on youth career development competency (i.e., engagement, self-understanding, career and pathway exploration, and planning and career management) as well as psychological well-being (i.e., purpose in life, personal growth, and life satisfaction) of young people with chronic disabling health conditions (YPCDHC) in Hong Kong. Based on a survey of 243 YPCDHC recruited from 24 service units located in different districts of Hong Kong, we conducted ordinary least squares and unconditional quantile regression analyses. The findings support the hypotheses that all three forms of social capital are positively associated with youth career development competency and psychological well-being, although their effects vary across outcome levels. For youth career development competency, peer social capital exhibits a U-shaped effect, being especially influential at both lower and upper quantiles, while school/workplace social capital becomes increasingly impactful toward the upper end of the distribution. Family social capital demonstrates a consistent but modest influence across all quantiles. In terms of psychological well-being, family social capital plays a stronger role at lower quantiles, whereas school/workplace social capital becomes more predictive at higher quantiles. Peer social capital, by contrast, shows relatively weaker and more variable effects. The detailed unconditional quantile regression findings lay the groundwork for advancing theories related to social capital and developmental outcomes in school-to-work transitions of disadvantaged youth. In addition, with our findings differentiating these impacts, this study also has several implications for practice.

This study investigates the impact of multiple family risk factors on socio-emotional competence (SEC) development among Chinese students through an innovative integration of the Cumulative Risk Model (CRM) and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Drawing on a large sample of data from a regional educational quality monitoring project in China, the study examined six family risk factors: incomplete family structure, poor parental education, parent-child separation, family financial hardship, lack of family intimacy, and family conflict. Findings from preliminary analysis validated CRM’s applicability in understanding the cumulative impact of these family risks on SEC development. Formal analysis identified lack of family intimacy as the singular and sufficient risk factor configuration leading to inferior SEC development, underscoring its pivotal role as a sufficient condition compared to other risk combinations or individual factors. This study has three important contributions: Theoretically, this study pioneers the application of CRM beyond singular risk factors, offering insights into how cumulative family risks collectively influence SEC outcomes. Methodologically, this study advances CRM by integrating novel QCA, revealing intricate interactions among family risk factors and elucidating necessary and sufficient conditions that impact SEC development. Practically, the research findings emphasize the critical role of addressing family intimacy in interventions aimed at enhancing holistic development and socio-emotional well-being among Chinese children and adolescents. Given the exploratory nature of QCA, this research calls for future efforts to refine family risk indices selection and comprehensively expand SEC indicators to deepen understandings of how family dynamics impact on student development.

The rising prevalence of psychological distress has intensified the disease burdens and revealed marked regional disparities in mental health outcomes. Addressing this challenge requires culturally sensitive frameworks to understand psychological distress. This study examined the long-term impact of parental psychological distress and family-level loneliness on the psychological well-being of offspring. It also explored how distinct filial piety profiles may moderate these associations. The analytic data consisted of 922 households collected from the Panel Study of Family Dynamics (PSFD) database in 2016, 2022, and 2024. It included 922 parents (49.7% male, Mage = 62.29 years) and 1,561 offspring (50.5% male, Mage = 33.93 years). Heterogeneity analysis and hierarchical linear modeling were employed to examine the proposed relationships. The results identified four latent filial piety profiles among offspring: Balanced Mode, Reciprocal Mode, Neutral Mode, and Non-filial Mode. Results indicated that both parental psychological distress and family-level loneliness significantly contributed to individual psychological distress. Offspring classified under the Balanced and Reciprocal Modes reported lower levels of psychological distress compared to those in the Non-filial Mode. Although the moderation effects of filial piety profiles were not statistically significant, incorporating the cross-level interaction terms into the model made the main effects of parental psychological distress nonsignificant. Finally, this study presented discussions and suggestions.

Well-being assessment is increasingly relevant for economic evaluations, especially in the health and social care sectors. However, measures like the 10-item Well-being instrument (WiX) have primarily been developed and validated in high-income settings. In Latin America, the need for validated well-being instruments is growing with the interest in expanding the scope of evaluations. This study aimed to evaluate the content and construct validity of the WiX in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru, and assessed whether a “Political participation” item would improve validity. The WiX was translated into Spanish, assessed qualitatively through interviews, and quantitatively using an online survey. Following COSMIN guidelines, content validation assessed relevance, comprehensiveness, and comprehensibility, while construct validation examined convergent, structural, and discriminative validity. Eleven interviews with experts and lay people confirmed the relevance, completeness, and clarity of the WiX items. Survey responses from 2,301 participants showed high correlations between WiX scores and other well-being measures. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed that the WiX captures a broader construct than health-related quality of life, and WiX scores varied as expected across age groups, employment status, partnership status, financial situation, and health status. Finally, adding a “Political participation” item did not enhance validity. In conclusion, the WiX appears to be a valid tool for assessing subjective well-being in these four countries and, therefore, useful for economic evaluations. Given the importance of well-being as a policy endpoint, this validation is an empirical contribution for intervention design, evaluation and monitoring within and across sectors in the Latin American context.

Social cohesion is essential for nearly all aspects of society. Often regarded as one of the pillars of a decent life and the glue that holds society together, social cohesion has attracted significant scholarly attention. Although it remains a complex construct—particularly in Africa, where multiethnicity is abundant—understanding the causes and consequences of social cohesion is crucial. One possible consequence of social cohesion is improved overall well-being, a link that has been made by various studies. However, in an African context, studies remain limited. Using the Afrobarometer dataset and multilevel mixed-effects regression analysis, we assess the association between social cohesion and subjective well-being across a sample of African countries. Our findings indicate that social cohesion has a positive and significant association with subjective well-being, even when controlling factors such as perceived corruption. Furthermore, we examine the moderating role of institutional quality and find that social cohesion has a stronger association in countries with low institutional quality. This highlights the importance of social cohesion for well-being in weak institutional settings, where a more cohesive social environment may help compensate for institutional deficiencies. These findings also emphasize the diverse dynamics of cohesion and subjective well-being across Africa, offering policymakers valuable insights into how fostering social cohesion can contribute to long-run economic growth and improved quality of life.

Timebanking, a system where individuals earn time credits through volunteering and exchange them for goods and services, has potential to enhance quality of life (QoL). However, existing studies primarily rely on single-case or qualitative designs, leaving the mechanisms linking timebanking to QoL in older adults underexplored. This study examines the chain-mediating roles of volunteering hours and two sequential pathways — empowerment and belonging — in explaining the impact of timebanking on QoL. A quasi-experimental study was conducted on a timebanking program targeting individuals aged 50 and above in Hong Kong between 2021 and 2022. A total of 116 participants in the timebank group and 114 in the comparison group engaged in volunteer activities at local community centers. The timebank group earned and exchanged time credits for rewards, while the comparison group did not. A Parallel Process Latent Growth Curve Model was used to analyze data. After controlling for covariates, the timebank group demonstrated a significantly faster increase in weekly volunteer hours over time compared to the comparison group (β = 0.93, 95% CI: 0.35, 1.61). Timebanking indirectly improved QoL over time, primarily through increased volunteering hours, which subsequently enhanced self-efficacy in volunteering (chain-mediating effect: β = 0.62, 95% CI: 0.11, 5.10). This study provides the first quasi-experimental evidence that timebanking is a promising intervention to improve QoL in older adults. By fostering increased volunteering and enhancing self-efficacy, timebanking offers an innovative and effective approach to promote active aging and well-being.