Section of the NILS-LSA, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Aichi, Japan.
Department of Psychology and University Research Priority Program "Dynamics of Healthy Aging," University of Zurich, Switzerland.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2020 Nov 13;75(10):2122-2131. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbz059.
Well-being typically exhibits pronounced deteriorations with approaching death, with sizeable interindividual variations in levels and changes. It is less well understood how psychosocial factors contribute to these individual differences. We examined whether and how social integration is associated with terminal trajectories of well-being, indexed as life satisfaction.
Data were drawn from 1,119 deceased Japanese participants of a 15-year longitudinal study (age at death: M = 79.2 years; SD = 7.7 years; 43.1% women). Life satisfaction, structural and functional features of social integration (e.g., frequency of contact with family and nonfamily, and perceived overall support, respectively), sociodemographic characteristics, and physical function were assessed.
Social integration predicted individual differences in terminal decline in life satisfaction, after controlling for age at death, gender, education, and physical function: More diverse social relationships were associated with higher levels of life satisfaction at 1 year before death. In addition, individuals who exhibited more decline in social participation and perceived less support showed more pronounced decline with increasing proximity of death.
This study suggests that social integration plays a protective role in late-life well-being and that sustaining an active social life and supportive social interactions may help mitigate terminal decline in well-being.
幸福感通常随着接近死亡而明显恶化，个体间的水平和变化存在很大差异。人们对心理社会因素如何导致这些个体差异的了解较少。我们研究了社会融合是否以及如何与幸福感的临终轨迹相关，幸福感以生活满意度为指标。
数据来自一项 15 年纵向研究的 1119 名已故日本参与者（死亡时年龄：M=79.2 岁；SD=7.7 岁；43.1%为女性）。评估了生活满意度、社会融合的结构和功能特征（例如，与家人和非家人的接触频率以及感知到的整体支持）、社会人口特征和身体功能。
在控制死亡时的年龄、性别、教育程度和身体功能后，社会融合预测了生活满意度在临终前下降的个体差异：更多元的社会关系与死亡前 1 年更高的生活满意度相关。此外，社会参与度下降更多和感知到的支持较少的个体，随着接近死亡的临近，幸福感下降更为明显。
本研究表明，社会融合在晚年幸福感中起着保护作用，维持积极的社交生活和支持性的社交互动可能有助于减轻幸福感的临终下降。
