Applied Research in Quality of Life最新文献

Although loneliness is associated with lower levels of subjective well-being, little is known about the precise nature of this association. Theoretical arguments have indicated a negative effect of loneliness on well-being, but there are alternative explanations, such as the possibility that chronically unhappy people select themselves into loneliness. This study investigates whether loneliness is detrimental to subjective well-being by considering selection as a competing explanation. The analyses were based on three waves of panel data from Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2017–2021, containing 85,083 observations from 31,223 individuals aged 16 to 103 years). Subjective well-being was measured using a single item capturing life satisfaction. Loneliness was measured both directly using a single item and indirectly using the three-item UCLA Loneliness Scale. First, pooled ordinary least squares (POLS) models were estimated to confirm previous cross-sectional findings. Subsequently, fixed-effects (FE) models were used to account for the possibility that chronically unhappy people select themselves into loneliness. The results of the POLS models showed that lonely people reported significantly lower levels of life satisfaction. This association persisted in the FE model, and the remaining association can be interpreted as evidence of the negative effect of loneliness on well-being. Further analyses showed that the results were similar for men and women and for younger and older people. Moreover, the results were remarkably robust across the two measures of loneliness and model specifications. Overall, the results support the claim that loneliness is detrimental to well-being. Thus, intervention strategies aimed at reducing loneliness may also be effective in improving well-being in the general population.

The global expansion of educational systems has led to a growing prevalence of overeducation. Despite the well-documented overeducation-depression nexus in the developed world, scholars have paid much less attention to this relationship in developing countries. This study utilized data from the China Labor-Force Dynamis Survey (CLDS) 2016 and China’s 1% Population Sample Survey 2015 to explore the mechanisms linking overeducation to depressive symptoms and identify factors buffering the strength of this association. Employing causal inference methods, including instrumental variable regression and propensity score matching, we find a positive impact of overeducation on depressive symptoms. Mediation analysis shows that low personal income and perceived fairness of earnings act as mediators, aligning with perspectives of wage penalty and distributive justice within the context of overeducation. Moreover, interaction effects suggest a stronger association between overeducation and depressive symptoms among individuals with less job autonomy, partially due to their lower likelihood of perceiving their earnings as fair. This study integrates status inconsistency theory and distributive justice theory, offering valuable insights for future research and policy formulation to address mental health challenges linked to educational mismatch in the workforce.

Among studies conceptualizing quality of life (QoL) as the subjective measure of one’s well-being, evidence suggests a link between cognitive impairment and diminished quality of life. However, the direction of the association is not clear, and most studies have employed a global measure of cognition, which can mask subtle domain-specific declines. In this study, we aim at examining the longitudinal associations between memory and QoL in a representative sample of adults and older adults in Europe and Israel, employing data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The sample was composed by 56,616 respondents aged 50 or older at the beginning of the study period. A Parallel-Process Latent Growth Model (PP LGM) of memory and QoL conditioned on the effects of age, gender, educational level, physical inactivity, depressive symptomatology and social activity participation, was tested. Results displayed a trajectory of decline for both memory and QoL, with higher initial levels of memory associated with higher initial levels of QoL, and steeper decline in memory associated with steeper decline in QoL. Moreover, a positive effect of initial memory onto QoL trend over time was found, indicating that better memory is associated to better QoL in the future, but the opposite did not occur. Results also provide evidence of gender differences. All in all, this work found evidence supporting the longitudinal effect of memory on QoL, which may have consequences for intervention implementation, given that actions for alleviating age-related memory impairment could also have a positive impact onto older adults’ QoL.

Previous studies have found links of intimate partner violence exposure and child maltreatment with school bullying among children and adolescents. However, little is known about how exposure to family violence may influence child and adolescent bullying perpetration and the mediating mechanism underlying this relationship. This study aimed to examine the relationship between exposure to family violence and school bullying perpetration, as well as the mediating roles of parental support and depression in this relationship. The sample consisted of 3,199 Chinese primary and secondary school students from grades four through twelve (mean age 13.4 years, 50.8% boys). Participants responded to validated self-report questionnaires in 2021. Generalized structural equation modeling was analyzed. The study found that exposure to family violence was significantly and positively associated with school bullying perpetration. Furthermore, parental support and depression, in this order, mediated the effect of exposure to family violence on bullying perpetration. Moreover, the overall mediating effect on traditional bullying perpetration is larger than that on cyber bullying perpetration. Less parental support and depression acted as risk factors for the negative effect of exposure to family violence on child and adolescent bullying perpetration. The importance of these two factors can motivate future intervention initiatives to prevent bullying perpetration from an integrated perspective.

Meaning in life (MIL) plays a critical role in promoting physical and mental health. Given the multidimensional nature of MIL, further research is needed to distinguish between different MIL components. The present study focused on three similar but distinct multidimensional measures (the Multidimensional Existential Meaning Scale, MEMS; the Multidimensional MIL Scale, MMILS; the Quadripartite Existential Meaning Scale, QEMS), aiming to validate the Chinese versions of these measures and to compare their predictive effects on subjective well-being, indicated by positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction. Data were collected from two Chinese samples. Sample 1 (N = 393) was used for factor analysis, while Sample 2 (N = 447) was used for the evaluation of measurement invariance, reliability, and predictive relationships of different MIL measures on subjective well-being. Results showed that all three MIL measurements (MEMS, QEMS, and modified MMILS) demonstrated good reliability and validity and positively predicted subjective well-being. Moreover, QEMS showed significant incremental validity in predicting both positive affect and negative affect when controlling for the effects of the other MIL measures. These findings suggest that compared with MEMS and MMILS, QEMS may be a more suitable multidimensional MIL measure in the Chinese context. Further research is needed to examine these findings in other cultural contexts.

The advent of democracy in 1994 promised South Africans a ‘better life for all’ and the so-called ‘born free’ generation hoped for better education and job opportunities than those of their parents and grandparents, who had lived under apartheid. In focus group discussions, township youth living in a small university town in the country’s poorest Eastern Cape Province had the opportunity to express what hopes they had for their future in the post-Covid-19 era and confirmed the important role of hope in their lives as a useful tool that motivated them to aspire to fulfil their dreams. In response to select items from the Snyder hope scales, youth discussed their life goals, optimism, agency, and pathway thinking to realise their dreams. Youth recognised hope could be both harmful as well as useful. The discussions provided an opportunity for youth to share and compare with others their experiences of disappointment and failure, of times when they had felt hopeless, with the worst cases of hopelessness resulting in alcohol and substance abuse, which was reportedly widespread among township youth. Family, neighbours and significant others provided support and advice that assisted youth to recover from hopelessness, and to find new direction in life. Results from this qualitative study point to the importance of providing township youth with a platform to share their experiences of hopelessness. Policy and practical interventions are needed to support and guide hopeless youth to regain their mental health, well-being, and hope for the future.

Despite the growing consensus that midlife appears to be a particularly vulnerable life phase for lower mental health and wellbeing, little is known about the potential reasons for this phenomenon or who the individuals at higher risk are. Our study used six waves (2013–2018) of the Swiss Household Panel (n = 5,315), to compare the distribution of mental health and wellbeing, as well as their key correlates, between midlife (40–55 years) and younger adults (25–39 years) in Switzerland. Moreover, using network analysis to investigate interrelationships across life domains, we describe the complex interrelations between multiple domain-specific correlates and indicators of both mental health and wellbeing across the two age groups. Middle-aged (age 40–55) individuals reported lower life satisfaction and joy, as well as higher anger, sadness, and worry than young adults (age 25–39), with the effect sizes reaching up to 0.20 Cohen’s d. They also reported lower social support, relationships satisfaction, health satisfaction, and higher job demands and job insecurity. Relationships satisfaction and social support were the most consistent correlates across all three indicators of wellbeing in both age groups. Health satisfaction was more strongly, and directly, interrelated with energy and optimism in midlife compared with young adulthood (0.21 vs 0.12, p = 0.007). Job demands were more strongly linked with anger and sadness in midlife. The network model helped us to identify correlates or their clusters with direct and strong links to mental health and wellbeing. We hypothesised that health satisfaction, relationships satisfaction, social support, and job demands may help to explain worse mental health and wellbeing in midlife.

In this article, we analyse loneliness trajectories for older people aged 50 or more in selected European countries by gender. We also focus on the relationship between disability and loneliness trajectories. We use three waves of the longitudinal SHARE database. Loneliness trajectories are non-linear, increasing with age for both genders, and have the same shape irrespective of disability status but with different levels of loneliness. Loneliness persistence increases with disability and disability severity, especially for women. Worsening (improving) disability increases (decreases) the risk of loneliness persistence. We build rankings of the country's effects on loneliness persistence by gender. Mediterranean and Eastern European countries have the highest persistence rates, while the lowest rates are in Northern countries.

Recently, migration and migrated distance significantly affects people's mood and satisfaction, and this idea has been recently incorporated in literature. The objective of this research is to analyze the relationship between migrated distance and job satisfaction in Ecuador distinguishing between formal and informal workers. We use a repeated cross-section data from the National Survey of Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment from the period 2014–2017, and ordered probit models with random parameters to meet our objective. Our results suggest that there is a negative and heterogeneous relationship between distance on migration and job satisfaction. Moreover, we found that formal workers should be compensated at $ 0.51 USD and informal workers should be compensated at $ 0.59 USD per kilometer migrated to mitigate the negative impact of migration. These results have important policy implications, for instance, the need to promote labor policies that promote labor well-being and offset the negative effects of long-distance migration.

New media use contributed to reducing pandemic risks and maintaining interpersonal relationships, but compromised psychological well-being. Until now, it is unclear how immigrants used new media during the pandemic to develop cultural adaptive strategies and gain access to social support beneficial to psychological well-being. This study tests the chain effects of cultural adaptation and social support on the association between new media use and the psychological well-being of immigrants. Cross-sectional data from 612 immigrants from a web-based survey in China was examined through partial least square structural equation models (PLS-SEM). The findings suggest that the independent mediating effect of cultural adaptation in the relationship between new media use and psychological well-being was significant with a dampening effect[β =  − 0.098; 95% CI (− 0.135, − 0.069); p < 0.001]. Similarly, the independent mediation effect of social support on the relationship between new media use and psychological well-being was also significant with a negative effect [β =  − 0.023; 95% CI (− 0.045, − 0.009); p < 0.05]. However, the chain mediation show a positive outcome such that the chain interaction of cultural adaptation and social support are pathways linking new media use to positive psychological well-being [β = 0.021; 95% CI (0.011, 0.035); p < 0.001], such that new media use enhances psychological well-being through the chain interactions of cultural adaptation and social support of immigrants. This study emphasizes the importance of joint promotion of cultural adaptation and social support in supporting psychological well-being associated with new media use. This study is critical to theories and practices of supporting immigrants during health crises.