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WWII traumatic events, subjective well-being and valuation of life in the very old
BACKGROUND: Experiencing war is a major trigger for physical and mental health problems. People in the German population who are currently over 80 years of age experienced the Second World War (WWII) as children or adolescents, at a time when psychological vulnerability is high. Empirical results sh...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer Medizin
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8571147/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34115172 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00391-021-01906-7 |
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author | Hauber, Daniel Kaspar, Roman Zank, Susanne |
author_facet | Hauber, Daniel Kaspar, Roman Zank, Susanne |
author_sort | Hauber, Daniel |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Experiencing war is a major trigger for physical and mental health problems. People in the German population who are currently over 80 years of age experienced the Second World War (WWII) as children or adolescents, at a time when psychological vulnerability is high. Empirical results show that positive subjective well-being (SWB) and valuation of life (VoL) in older cohorts are widespread; however, when confronted with existential age-associated changes, many older adults experience increased burden, sometimes bringing biographical vulnerabilities to the forefront. This study investigated SWB and VoL in the very old and examined the influence of negative WWII experiences on these outcomes. METHOD: Cross-sectional data from the “Survey on quality of life and subjective well-being of the very old in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW80+)” are presented. Multiple regression models, adjusted for gender, age, physical health, and full inpatient care, were computed to assess the impact of suffering from the effects of WWII traumatic experiences on SWB and VoL. RESULTS: Over 13% spontaneously reported suffering from the effects of WWII events and an additional 29% reported negative experiences when explicitly asked about them. Multiple regression models showed elevated depression scores for participants suffering from the effects of WWII traumatic events. No association with positive affect was found. Suffering from the effects of WWII traumatic events did not influence VoL engagement with life or VoL optimism. DISCUSSION: Many very old adults still seem to struggle with the repercussions of WWII traumatic experiences. Future studies could further examine if the missing association with positive affect and VoL is a sign of resilience. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8571147 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer Medizin |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85711472021-11-08 WWII traumatic events, subjective well-being and valuation of life in the very old Hauber, Daniel Kaspar, Roman Zank, Susanne Z Gerontol Geriatr Original Contributions BACKGROUND: Experiencing war is a major trigger for physical and mental health problems. People in the German population who are currently over 80 years of age experienced the Second World War (WWII) as children or adolescents, at a time when psychological vulnerability is high. Empirical results show that positive subjective well-being (SWB) and valuation of life (VoL) in older cohorts are widespread; however, when confronted with existential age-associated changes, many older adults experience increased burden, sometimes bringing biographical vulnerabilities to the forefront. This study investigated SWB and VoL in the very old and examined the influence of negative WWII experiences on these outcomes. METHOD: Cross-sectional data from the “Survey on quality of life and subjective well-being of the very old in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW80+)” are presented. Multiple regression models, adjusted for gender, age, physical health, and full inpatient care, were computed to assess the impact of suffering from the effects of WWII traumatic experiences on SWB and VoL. RESULTS: Over 13% spontaneously reported suffering from the effects of WWII events and an additional 29% reported negative experiences when explicitly asked about them. Multiple regression models showed elevated depression scores for participants suffering from the effects of WWII traumatic events. No association with positive affect was found. Suffering from the effects of WWII traumatic events did not influence VoL engagement with life or VoL optimism. DISCUSSION: Many very old adults still seem to struggle with the repercussions of WWII traumatic experiences. Future studies could further examine if the missing association with positive affect and VoL is a sign of resilience. Springer Medizin 2021-06-11 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8571147/ /pubmed/34115172 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00391-021-01906-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2021, corrected publication 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Original Contributions Hauber, Daniel Kaspar, Roman Zank, Susanne WWII traumatic events, subjective well-being and valuation of life in the very old |
title | WWII traumatic events, subjective well-being and valuation of life in the very old |
title_full | WWII traumatic events, subjective well-being and valuation of life in the very old |
title_fullStr | WWII traumatic events, subjective well-being and valuation of life in the very old |
title_full_unstemmed | WWII traumatic events, subjective well-being and valuation of life in the very old |
title_short | WWII traumatic events, subjective well-being and valuation of life in the very old |
title_sort | wwii traumatic events, subjective well-being and valuation of life in the very old |
topic | Original Contributions |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8571147/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34115172 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00391-021-01906-7 |
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