The Influential Factors Of Subjective Well-being Among Widowed Older Adults And The Psychological Intervention Effects

The loss of a spouse is generally regarded as one of the most stressfullife events, particularly for old adults. Nowadays, the condition of Population Aging inour country is serious. The mental health of widowed older adults has became the focusof the world's attention, and the conception called Subjective Well-being (SWB)always considered to be a good evaluation index to mental health in Geropsychologyand Social psychology (Wang Xiangdong, et al.).Purpose. The main purpouse of this study are to study the relationships ofsubjective well-being, coping style and social supports among widowed Older adults.After that, construct the optimal model of SWB and assess the effects of differentintervention strategies.Method and Procedure. With the purpose of constructing the causality and causalmodel, MUNSH, CMI, CSQ, SSRS and the written questionnaire were administered totest the widowed elders who living in communities and lost their spouse for over oneyears, and then evaluated the effects among different intervention strategies in 8 weeks.(1) The face-to-face counseling group, include lectures of mental health care, discussion,experience shared and group counseling. (2) The long-distance counseling group (withtelephone counseling), include the imparting of knowledge about mental health care,experience shared and individual counseling. (3) The matched group, without anyinterventions.Participants. The causality and causal model of Subjective Well-being wasexamined in a spousal bereavement sample of 292 older adults selected from sixcommunities by stratified random sampling in Xi'an. There are 149 males and 143females, ranging from 60 to 86 years of age (M=69.38, SD=4.77). The interventionstrategies were assessed on three groups: (1) The effect of face-to-face counseling wereassessed in a spousal bereavement sample of 77 older adults who selected from originalsubjects. There were 40 males and 37 females, ranged from 62 to 86 years of age (M=69.01, SD=7.28). (2) The effect of long-distance counseling were assessed in a spousalbereavement sample of 77 older adults selected from original subjects including 42 males and 35 females, ranging from 60 to 82 years of age (M=69.14, SD=4.87). (3)The matched group includes 77 elders selected from original subjects including 40males and 37 females, ranged from 61 to 80 years of age (M=69.79, SD=4.67).Results. By analyzing the outcome of statistical analysis, the results are as follows:(1) The males reported higher SWB than the females did, the gender difference of SWBhad statistical significance (t=3.648, p＜0.001). (2) The SWB of widowed older adultshave negative correlations with CMI and maladaptive coping styles, and positivecorrelation with social support. (3)A structural equation modeling study was made onthe constructs of SWB. The current results showed that the proposed model agreed withthe assessment data collected from the community widowed elderly (N=292). (4) Inthe face-to-face counseling group, the SWB of windowed elder were higher than before(t=-3.044, p＜0.01). In long-distance counseling group, the SWB were lower thanbefore (t=-3.387, p＜0.01). The difference in matched group did not have statisticalsignificance.Conclusion. (1) The mental health, coping style and social support are direct andpositive factors to predict widowed elders' SWB. Mental health is a mediator in theindirect effects of social support to SWB. (2) Less social supports are risk factors toSWB that may confer risk to widowed elders who may already have maladaptive copingstyles. (3) The maladaptive coping style is the risk factors to SWB. (4) The face-to-facecounseling such as search for identity training and group counseling can reduce themaladaptive coping styles efficiently which is benefit for the widowed elders' mentalhealth.The improvements on this study are as follows: (1)Participants. Althoughconsiderable efforts have now focused on elders' SWB, relatively less attention has beengiven to examining the problems of those who lose their spouse. In this study, the authorprobed into the cause of low-SWB in the context of spousal bereavement. (2)Methods.This study examine the cause-effect relationships between SWB, coping style, socialsupport and mental health according to Structural Equation Model (SEM), more thanmere data analysis. (3)Procedure. Most of the previous researches aimed at constructingan intervention model, but its practicabilities have been ignored. According to themodification model which has been set up, the intervention program has been made for8 weeks. The original subjects are divided into three groups: Face-to-face CounselingGroup, Long-distance Counseling Group and the Matched Group without any intervention. 8 weeks later, psychophylaxis parameters of all subjects are retested andstatistically analyzed with the data before counselling. According to this, the author canjudge the practical effect of the intervention program, and assess the accuracy of themodification model furthermore. (4)Results. The author constructed the structuralequation model of the SWB about the old people who suffer from conjugal loss andinspect the practical significance of the model with social experiment. Besides, thisstudy supply scientific information and practice program for the improvement of SWBabout the elders without spouse, and provides interventional methods more than meredata assessment.