Applied Research in Quality of Life最新文献

This study aims to explore the relationship between economic insecurity, perceived stress, and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data for this study came from five waves of the Understanding American Survey, which was fielded from April 2020 through April 2021. A multilevel modeling approach was used to analyze the longitudinal dataset. The findings reveal a positive association between economic insecurity and depressive symptoms. The results also indicate an indirect effect, demonstrating that economic insecurity influences depressive symptoms through its impact on perceived stress. Additionally, the results suggest that economic insecurity amplifies fluctuations in depressive symptoms over time, although this intensifying effect diminishes as time progresses.

With the increasing prevalence of mental health issues among young populations, participatory methods have gained attention for their potential to engage children in the design and implementation of interventions aimed at enhancing their psychological well-being. Despite the growing body of research involving children and adolescents, there remains a significant gap in the literature regarding the systematic use of participatory methods specifically tailored to this demographic. This systematic review addresses the research gap in tailored participatory approaches for improving psychological well-being among children and adolescents amid rising youth mental health challenges. Analyzing 14 empirical studies (1990–2024) in English from Web of Science, Ebscohost, Scope, PsycINFO, three key findings emerge. First, diverse participatory tools—such as creative workshops, art-based activities, and digital platforms—effectively engage youth as active co-designers of interventions, enhancing their agency and ownership. Second, psychological well-being is primarily conceptualized through positive emotional indicators (e.g., happiness, belonging), with limited integration of cognitive, behavioral, or social functioning dimensions. Third, participatory methods increasingly serve dual roles: as research frameworks capturing contextualized needs and as empowerment-driven interventions fostering resilience and self-efficacy. While small sample sizes constrain generalizability, the study underscores participatory methods’ dual value—methodologically, they reveal nuanced well-being dynamics. Practically, they create youth-centered pathways for psychological well-being improvement. The findings advocate for standardized metrics to evaluate participatory methods’ effectiveness and emphasize cross-cultural adaptations to enhance applicability. This synthesis provides actionable insights for developing age-specific interventions, urging policymakers and practitioners to prioritize participatory paradigms that bridge research and real-world psychological well-being outcomes.

This study utilizes data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018, focusing on a sample of Chinese students, to investigate disparities in well-being (eudemonia and positive affect) between vocational and general high school students. Utilizing regression model, Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM), Inverse Probability Weighting (IPW), and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), this study examines the impact of school type while addressing endogeneity and testing robustness. Results of regression model indicate that general high school students report significantly lower eudemonia (β = -.181, p < .001) and positive affect (β = -.090, p < .001) compared to vocational high school students. The study employs CEM and IPW to address endogeneity and selection bias, and the findings remain robust. SEM further revealed that school type directly reduced well-being while highlighting competitiveness as a mediating factor, partially offsetting the negative impact of school type through positive indirect effects. Collectively, results underscore that general high school students experience diminished well-being relative to vocational peers, with systemic academic pressures and social dynamics contributing to these disparities. The findings advocate for holistic educational reforms prioritizing student well-being.

What is the human mechanism for coping with expected and unexpected fluctuations in well-being? Psychological and economic theories suggest that possessing non-pecuniary capital promotes emotional resilience and reduces volatility in well-being. By integrating psychological, economic, and financial principles, this paper develops a deeper understanding of non-pecuniary capital’s protective role. The model is based on the notion that savings and diverse capital investments are key elements for coping with both foreseeable and unforeseeable disruptions in well-being. The proper allocation of the time, effort, attention and money sufficient for establishing a buffer against fluctuations in well-being is based on four conditions: (1) Overall well-being consisting of hedonia and eudaimonia; (2) Both components require an individual to be an active producer who invests scarce resources to accumulate both hedonic and eudaimonic capital, each divided into private and collective forms; (3) People act based on both selfish and altruistic motives; and (4) It is important to invest in one’s “authentic inner compass.” The model’s predictions are analyzed for two disruptions that can be expected – retirement from paid work and “empty nest syndrome” – and one unexpected “life quake.” The empirical evidence supporting the model is gathered from international experience.

The colonial history of Hong Kong and its evolving immigration policies have shaped a unique composition of school-aged children from diverse residential and educational backgrounds. This study identified four types of students involved in the context of cross-border migration and examined the impacts of migration status, residential location, school location, and migration strategy on a wide set of indicators of children’s well-being. Based on a cross-sectional survey in mainland China and Hong Kong, a sample of 2,610 students was included in the analysis, including 348 New Immigrant Students (NIS), 445 Cross-border Students (CBS), 1,387 Hong Kong Local Students (HKLS), and 430 Hong-Kong born students in mainland China (HKMS). 25 indicators from 5 dimensions (physical health, mental health, resilience, educational outcomes, and interpersonal relationships) were selected to measure children’s well-being. Results of propensity score matching methods showed that NIS significantly outperformed HKLS, especially in indicators of mental health, resilience, educational outcomes, and interpersonal relationships; CBS and HKLS fared similarly across almost all well-being indicators; school location and family migration strategy brought both benefits and harms to children’s well-being. Findings of this study revealed that cross-border migration was complicated and its impact on children’s well-being was multi-faceted. This study contributed to the literature by providing a complete and comprehensive picture of the consequences of cross-border migration.

This study investigates the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which profoundly changed workplace norms and care support, on family caregivers’ sense of work-family balance. Existing theoretical frameworks, including the conflict view of work and family, the “Shecession” framework, the role facilitation approach, and the couple equity argument, often depict contradictory mechanisms of the impacts of the pandemic on the sense of work-family balance of family caregivers. This study navigates the different frameworks in the contexts of the zero-COVID policies in China. Based on data from a national online survey of 1,190 Chinese citizens over the age of 18, we find that while crisis family caregivers who had to participate in family care during quarantines tended to employ the conflict view of work and family, the facilitative view better explains the feelings of all-time primary family caregivers. Both types of caregivers, however, report positive impacts of quarantines on family relationships and work-family balance. The findings challenge the prevailing assumption of undermined work-family balance and suffering family caregivers during the pandemic, and advocate for workplace, social, and policy changes in the “normal” time.

Employing a moderated parallel mediation model, this study investigated the influence mechanism of parental smartphone addiction on children’s social avoidance among 1586 parent-child dyads (M_age =51.19 months, SD = 13.49) in Shanghai, China. The results revealed that: (1) maternal smartphone addiction positively predicted children’s social avoidance; (2) mother-child closeness and mother-child conflict significantly mediated the relationship between maternal smartphone addiction and children’s social avoidance, accounting for 13.33% and 45% of the total effect, respectively; (3) mother-child conflict moderated the relationship between paternal smartphone addiction and children’s social avoidance, with the association being significant only when mother-child conflict was below 1.65 SD. Both mother-child conflict and mother-child closeness moderated the relationship between father-child closeness and children’s social avoidance, with the association being significant only when mother-child conflict was above 0.002 SD and mother-child closeness was below − 1.40 SD. These findings suggest that enhancing parent-child closeness and reducing parent-child conflict may buffer the adverse effects of parental smartphone addiction on children’s social avoidance.

Social support has been found to facilitate creativity. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Guided by the broadened-and-build theory, this correlational study addressed the question of how perceived social support (PSS) influences self-rated creativity through the mediating role of hope. Study 1 included a community sample of 1204 individuals aged 18 to 64 from Australia, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Correlation analysis showed the three variables were positively correlated with each other across five countries. Moreover, mediation analysis indicated that PSS had an indirect relationship with creativity through hope when creative self-efficacy and age were controlled. Study 2 replicated these findings in a sample of 210 working adults in Malaysia. The consistency supports the robustness of the results across different age and cultural contexts. These findings confirm that social support and hope should be considered in creativity studies. Although further research would be useful, it appears that creativity could be improved with social support and hope. Altogether, policy, program development, and interventions aimed at fostering supportive communities may be able to enhance creativity by leveraging both social support and hope.

Intergenerational support is an important social convoy for older adults’ well-being and health, but such links may vary by personal and situational characteristics. Guided by the convoy model of social relations, we examined whether and how patterns of intergenerational support predict frailty and the moderating effect of age and pension among older Chinese adults. Using 5,388 adults aged 60 and older from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011–2018), we conducted latent profile analysis to explore the patterns of support of older parents. Lagged regression models were used to examine the effects of these patterns on frailty and the moderating effects of public pension and age. Six patterns highlighting the provision and receipt of financial, emotional, and physical support were found. Older adults who were financial reciprocal and physical under-benefiting exchangers had lower levels of frailty than those who were financial over-benefiting and physical under-benefiting exchangers. Public pension and age differences in intergenerational support patterns were identified through simple slope analysis. Financial receivers and physical providers, as well as those who were financial nonexchangers and physical under-benefiting exchangers among urban pensioners, were significantly associated with lower levels of frailty. Additionally, financial nonexchangers/reciprocal and physical under-benefiting exchangers were significantly associated with lower levels of frailty among old and oldest-old individuals (aged 70+). Public pension- and age-specific pathways to intergenerational support patterns may lead to health disparities. Policies and programs to reduce frailty among older people should aim to improve the financial capabilities of both older adults and their children by improving public pension programs and ensure adequate physical care services for older people.

The impact of residential proximity (RP) to EPA-designated Superfund sites on personal well-being remains understudied. This study evaluated the well-being of residents living near a former uranium processing facility in Fernald, Ohio, now a Superfund site, which emitted significant amounts of radioactive hazardous waste. Baseline data were collected from 7,957 participants who voluntarily enrolled in the Fernald Community Cohort. Participants completed the Health Risk Appraisal (HRA), which assessed four well-being indicators: Life Satisfaction, Life in Control, Life Perspective, and Overall Physical Health. Separate multivariable ordinal logistic regression models were used to evaluate the cross-sectional relationship between RP and well-being outcomes. The results indicated that residents living within a 1-mile radius of the Superfund site had 38% greater odds of reporting lower Life Satisfaction compared to those residing 4–5 miles away [OR 1.38, 95% CI: 1.17, 1.64]. In the fully adjusted models, other significant risk factors emerged. Participants who reported two or more recent misfortunes in the past year were more likely to report a negative Life Perspective [OR 2.79, 95% CI: 2.36, 3.32]. Additionally, those with a weakened social ties had significantly higher odds of reporting diminished Life Satisfaction [OR 5.16, 95% CI: 4.33, 6.16]. This study identified RP to a Superfund site and psychosocial characteristics as significant predictors of well-being. Given the global prevalence of contaminated sites, particularly in socioeconomically disadvantaged regions, further investigation into their impact on local communities is essential.