School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, Psychology & Neuroscience, London, England.
Int J Behav Med. 2023 Jun;30(3):388-397. doi: 10.1007/s12529-022-10100-x. Epub 2022 Jul 1.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has impacted many people's meaning in life and health behaviors. This study aimed to verify the relationship among meaning in life (MIL), epidemic risk perception, health locus of control (HLC), and preventive health behaviors among older adults after the COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic.
In this longitudinal study, 164 participants aged 55 years and above completed the following measures at time 1 (February 19, 2021) and one month later at time 2 (March 19, 2021): Meaning in Life in the Epidemic Questionnaire, Epidemic Risk Perception Questionnaire, Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale, and Health Behaviors Before and After the Epidemic Survey. Hayes' SPSS Process Macro was used to analyze the mediating effect of epidemic risk perception (model 4) and the moderating role of powerful others HLC in the mediation model (model 14).
The results showed that after controlling for gender, age, education level, and health behaviors at the baseline, risk perception had a significant mediating effect on the relationship between MIL and preventive health behaviors (β = .02, SE = .01, 95% CI [.00, .04]). In addition, powerful others HLC had a moderating effect on the second half of the mediating effect (β = .02, p = .02, 95% CI [.00, .03]). Specifically, compared to the older adults with low powerful others HLC, the risk perception of older adults with high powerful others HLC increased preventive health behaviors.
Practitioners should adequately cultivate older adults' risk awareness and reinforce the importance of advice from doctors and professionals, thereby effectively enhancing the preventive health behaviors of older adults in China during the COVID-19 pandemic.
2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）影响了许多人的生活意义和健康行为。本研究旨在验证 COVID-19 大流行宣布后，生活意义（MIL）、传染病风险感知、健康控制源（HLC）与老年人预防保健行为之间的关系。
在这项纵向研究中，164 名年龄在 55 岁及以上的参与者在时间 1（2021 年 2 月 19 日）和一个月后的时间 2（2021 年 3 月 19 日）完成了以下措施：传染病风险感知问卷、传染病风险感知问卷、多维健康控制源量表和传染病前后健康行为调查。Hayes 的 SPSS 过程宏用于分析传染病风险感知（模型 4）的中介效应和强大他人 HLC 在中介模型中的调节作用（模型 14）。
结果表明，在控制基线时的性别、年龄、教育水平和健康行为后，风险感知对 MIL 与预防保健行为之间的关系具有显著的中介作用（β=0.02，SE=0.01，95%CI [0.00，0.04]）。此外，强大他人 HLC 对中介效应的后半部分具有调节作用（β=0.02，p=0.02，95%CI [0.00，0.03]）。具体来说，与强大他人 HLC 水平低的老年人相比，强大他人 HLC 水平高的老年人的风险感知会增加预防保健行为。
从业者应充分培养老年人的风险意识，并加强医生和专业人员建议的重要性，从而在 COVID-19 大流行期间有效增强中国老年人的预防保健行为。
