Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA.
Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA.
Aging Ment Health. 2023 Jun;27(6):1198-1207. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2022.2078790. Epub 2022 May 27.
The goal of this study was to examine if mental health and psychosocial well-being differed between middle-aged (MA; 40-59 years), younger-old (YO; 60-79 years), and older-old (OO; 80+ years) adults with respect to their trends, heterogeneity, and correlates.
Eighteen mental health and psychosocial well-being instruments were administered to 590 adults over age 40. Cross-sectional data also included self-report-based measures of sociodemographics, cognitive functioning, physical health and activity, and body mass index.
Age trends across instruments varied in magnitude and shape, but generally supported an inverted U-shaped trend in mental health and psychosocial well-being, with small increases from MA to YO age ( = 0.29) and smaller declines from YO to OO age ( = -0.17). A U-shaped association between age and mental health heterogeneity was also observed. The strongest correlates of mental health and psychosocial well-being differed by age (MA: perceived stress; YO: successful aging; OO: compassion toward others), as did the associations of a flourishing versus languishing mental health and well-being profile.
Our findings support the "paradox of aging," whereby declines in physical and cognitive health co-occur with relatively preserved mental health and well-being. Our findings indicate that variance in mental and psychosocial health does not increase linearly with age and support careful consideration of heterogeneity in mental health and aging research. Our findings also suggest that mental health and psychosocial well-being decouple from stress-related dimensions in MA and become increasingly associated with positive, other-oriented emotions in OO, broadly supporting socioemotional theories of aging.
本研究旨在探讨中年（40-59 岁）、年轻老年人（60-79 岁）和高龄老年人（80 岁以上）的心理健康和社会心理幸福感在趋势、异质性和相关性方面是否存在差异。
对 590 名 40 岁以上的成年人进行了 18 项心理健康和社会心理幸福感的评估。横断面数据还包括基于自我报告的社会人口统计学、认知功能、身体健康和活动以及体重指数的测量。
跨工具的年龄趋势在幅度和形状上存在差异，但总体上支持心理健康和社会心理幸福感呈倒 U 型趋势，从中年到年轻老年人年龄略有增加（=0.29），从年轻老年人到高龄老年人年龄略有下降（=−0.17）。年龄与心理健康异质性之间也存在 U 型关联。心理健康和社会心理幸福感的最强相关因素因年龄而异（中年：感知压力；年轻老年人：成功老龄化；高龄老年人：对他人的同情），繁荣与萎靡不振的心理健康和幸福感状况的关联也因年龄而异。
我们的研究结果支持“衰老悖论”，即身体和认知健康的下降与相对保留的心理健康和幸福感同时发生。我们的研究结果表明，心理和社会心理健康的差异不会随年龄线性增加，并支持在心理健康和老龄化研究中仔细考虑异质性。我们的研究结果还表明，心理健康和社会心理幸福感与中年的应激相关维度脱钩，并在高龄老年人中与积极的、面向他人的情绪越来越相关，这广泛支持了衰老的社会情绪理论。
