The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on trajectories of well-being of middle-aged and older adults

• Verfasst von: Wettstein, Markus [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Wahl, Hans-Werner [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Schlomann, Anna [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on trajectories of well-being of middle-aged and older adults
• Titelzusatz: a multidimensional and multidirectional perspective
• Verf.angabe: Markus Wettstein, Hans-Werner Wahl, Anna Schlomann
• E-Jahr: 2022
• Jahr: 23 August 2022
• Umfang: 28 S.
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 25.01.2023
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: Journal of happiness studies
• Ort Quelle: Dordrecht [u.a.] : Springer Science + Business Media B.V, 2000
• Jahr Quelle: 2022
• Band/Heft Quelle: 23(2022), 7, Seite 3577-3604
• ISSN Quelle: 1573-7780
• DOI: doi:10.1007/s10902-022-00552-z
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Sach-SW: adaptation
• Sach-SW: Corona crisis
• Sach-SW: Eudaimonic well-being
• Sach-SW: happiness
• Sach-SW: Hedonic well-being
• Sach-SW: life satisfaction
• Sach-SW: Life satisfaction
• Sach-SW: Midlife
• Sach-SW: model
• Sach-SW: mortality
• Sach-SW: Old age
• Sach-SW: self-rated health
• Sach-SW: stability
• Sach-SW: time
• Sach-SW: validity
• K10plus-PPN: 1832207455

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in profound changes of individuals' everyday lives. Restrictions in social contacts and in leisure activities and the threatening situation of a spreading virus might have resulted in compromised well-being. At the same time, the pandemic could have promoted specific aspects of psychosocial well-being, e.g., due to intensified relationships with close persons during lockdown periods. We investigated this potentially multidimensional and multi-directional pattern of pandemic-specific change in well-being by analyzing changes over up to 8 years (2012-2020) in two broad well-being domains, hedonic well-being (life satisfaction) and eudaimonic well-being (one overarching eudaimonic well-being indicator as well as environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, and self-acceptance), among 423 adults who were aged 40-98 years in 2012. By modelling longitudinal multilevel regression models and allowing for a measurement-specific intra-individual deviation component from the general slope in 2020, i.e. after the pandemic outbreak, we analyzed potential normative history-graded changes due to the pandemic. All mean-level history-graded changes were nonsignificant, but most revealed substantial interindividual variability, indicating that individuals' pandemic-related well-being changes were remarkably heterogeneous. Only for personal growth and self-acceptance, adding a pandemic-related change component (and interindividual variability thereof) did not result in a better model fit. Individuals with poorer self-rated health at baseline in 2012 revealed a pandemic-related change toward lower life satisfaction. Our findings suggest that not all well-being domains - and not all individuals - are equally prone to "COVID-19 effects", and even pandemic-associated gains were observed for some individuals in certain well-being domains.