Department of Psychology, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Humboldt University of Berlin.
German Centre of Gerontology.
Psychol Aging. 2023 Nov;38(7):627-643. doi: 10.1037/pag0000760. Epub 2023 Jun 22.
So far little is known with regard to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on changes in psychosocial functioning of middle-aged and older adults across multiple indicators, interindividual differences in these changes, as well as the extent to which pandemic-related changes are temporary or not. We investigate different domains of psychosocial functioning (views on aging: attitude toward own aging [ATOA] and subjective age; subjective well-being: life satisfaction and depressive symptoms; health: self-rated health) across up to 7 years (prepandemic measurement occasions: 2014 and 2017; peri-pandemic measurement occasions: Summer 2020 and Winter 2020/2021) among middle-aged and older adults ( = 10,856; in 2014 = 64.3 years, = 11.58), based on data of the German Ageing Survey. Longitudinal multilevel regression models revealed that mean-level change toward more negative ATOA over time was aggravated by an additional shift toward more pessimistic ATOA in Summer 2020. In contrast, the mean-level change toward older subjective ages over time was interrupted by a shift toward younger subjective ages in Summer 2020. This shift was more pronounced among chronologically younger individuals. Depressive symptoms remained on average stable over time, but there was a temporary increase in Summer 2020. No pandemic-related change was observed for life satisfaction and self-rated health. Our findings suggest that different psychosocial functioning indicators reveal a different susceptibility to "COVID-19 effects," but all changes were temporary, potentially reflecting processes of adaptation. We discuss our results in the context of established theories, such as socioemotional selectivity theory or set-point theory of well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
目前，人们对 COVID-19 大流行对中年和老年人多个指标的心理社会功能变化、这些变化的个体间差异，以及与大流行相关的变化是暂时的还是持久的影响知之甚少。我们研究了中年和老年人在不同心理社会功能领域（对衰老的看法：对自身衰老的态度 [ATOA] 和主观年龄；主观幸福感：生活满意度和抑郁症状；健康：自我报告的健康）的变化，时间跨度最长为 7 年（大流行前的测量时间点：2014 年和 2017 年；大流行期间的测量时间点：2020 年夏季和 2020/2021 年冬季），这是基于德国老龄化调查的数据。纵向多层回归模型显示，随着时间的推移，ATOA 向更消极的方向的平均水平变化因 2020 年夏季更悲观的 ATOA 额外转变而加剧。相比之下，随着时间的推移，向更老的主观年龄的平均水平变化因 2020 年夏季向更年轻的主观年龄的转变而中断。这种转变在年龄较小的个体中更为明显。抑郁症状平均在一段时间内保持稳定，但在 2020 年夏季有所增加。在生活满意度和自我报告的健康方面，没有观察到与大流行相关的变化。我们的研究结果表明，不同的心理社会功能指标显示出对“COVID-19 效应”的不同敏感性，但所有变化都是暂时的，可能反映了适应过程。我们在社会情绪选择理论或幸福感的设定点理论等既定理论的背景下讨论了我们的结果。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2023 APA，保留所有权利）。
