Douma Linden, Steverink Nardi, Hutter Inge, Meijering Louise
Department of Demography, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, the Netherlands.
Healthy Ageing, Population and Society, University of Groningen, the Netherlands.
Gerontologist. 2017 Apr 1;57(2):229-239. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnv119.
Previous research has overlooked the heterogeneity in older adults' personal conceptions of subjective well-being (SWB), by not taking into account intradomain differences in the conceptions of SWB for different groups of older adults. The aim of this article is therefore to explore (a) older adults' own views on which aspects, categorized under domains, are important to their SWB and (b) which domains and aspects are important to older adults in different contexts and with different characteristics: to men and women, of different ages, and in different housing arrangements.
Sixty-six older adults (aged 65 and older) participated in our study. We asked the participants to freely nominate aspects of SWB that are important to them, using participant-generated word clouds as our exploratory, qualitative data collection method. The data were analyzed using qualitative inductive content analysis.
We found 15 domains based on our participants' conceptions of SWB. The multidimensional domains of social life, activities, health, and space and place were most important to our participants. The domains and aspects were defined and prioritized differently by different groups of participants.
SWB should be studied as a multidimensional, individualized, and contextualized process to generate meaningful empirical information for researchers and policymakers.
以往的研究忽视了老年人主观幸福感（SWB）个人观念中的异质性，未考虑不同老年人群体在主观幸福感观念上的领域内差异。因此，本文的目的是探讨：（a）老年人自己认为在按领域分类的哪些方面对其主观幸福感很重要；（b）在不同背景下以及具有不同特征的老年人（不同年龄的男性和女性，以及不同居住安排的老年人）中，哪些领域和方面很重要。
66名65岁及以上的老年人参与了我们的研究。我们要求参与者自由提名对他们来说重要的主观幸福感方面，使用参与者生成的词云作为我们探索性的定性数据收集方法。数据采用定性归纳内容分析法进行分析。
根据参与者对主观幸福感的观念，我们发现了15个领域。社会生活、活动、健康以及空间和场所等多维度领域对我们的参与者最为重要。不同组别的参与者对这些领域和方面的定义和优先级有所不同。
应将主观幸福感作为一个多维度、个性化和情境化的过程来研究，以便为研究人员和政策制定者提供有意义的实证信息。
