Feeling Needed: Effects of Generativity on Health in Lonely Older Adults

 描述(申请人提供)：60岁以上的世界人口比例正在以前所未有的速度增长。鉴于这一趋势，研究老年人的心理和身体健康是当务之急。心理社会因素，如孤独感，对于了解老年人的整体健康至关重要，因为孤独感的增加与老年人的功能衰退和死亡风险增加有关。老年人的孤独可能在一定程度上是由有意义的社交活动的中断造成的。事实上，成长性被定义为关心和致力于他人，特别是年轻一代及其相关组成部分的福祉的活动，例如感到对社会有用或被需要，往往被包括在成功老龄化的模型中。此外，对生殖能力的更多认知与老年人更好的健康结果和寿命有关。因此，孤独的老年人可能会特别受益于旨在提高生殖意识的有针对性的心理干预，这可能会通过增加社会有用性来改善社会联系的感觉，并改善健康结果。NIA R03应用的目的是在健康和老龄化的背景下调查社会心理过程和促炎反应之间的关系。为了做到这一点，这项拟议的研究将调查旨在提高孤独者生殖能力感知的干预措施的效果 老年人对身心健康的影响。鉴于促炎活动与孤独和糟糕的健康结果都有关，这项研究还将检查干预对炎症生物标记物(即循环和刺激的促炎细胞因子和促炎基因表达)的影响。参与者(n=70)将被随机分配到为期6周的干预措施中，旨在提高人们对生殖能力或控制条件的看法。在干预前和干预后，所有参与者都将完成身心健康的自我报告，并抽血(以评估炎症的生物标志物)。研究假设，与对照组相比，生殖性干预的参与者将表现出：1)改善身心健康结果；2)从干预前到干预后，促炎活性降低。此外，还假设生物促炎活性的减少将促进健康结果的改善。本研究将有助于促进对生殖能力对老年人生活的影响的理解，包括对健康和炎症活动的影响。这可能会为改善老年人的健康状况提供一种低成本和低投入的方法，特别是那些可能最容易受到不良健康状况影响的人，如那些孤独的人。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proportion of the world's population over age 60 is increasing at an unprecedented rate. Given this trend, it is imperative to study the mental and physical health of older adults. Psychosocial factors, such as loneliness, are critical in understanding the overall health of older adults, given that increased feelings of loneliness have been linked to functional decline and increased risk of mortality in older adults. Loneliness in older adults may be partially driven by disruptions in meaningful social engagement. In fact, generativity defined as concern and activity dedicated to the well-being of others, especially younger generations and its related components, such as feeling socially useful or needed, are often included in models of successful aging. Furthermore, greater perceptions of generativity have been linked to better health outcomes and longevity in older adults. Thus, lonely older adults may especially benefit from a targeted psychological intervention aimed at increasing perceptions of generativity, which may improve feelings of social connection through increased feelings of social usefulness, as well as improve health outcomes. The objective of this NIA R03 application is to investigate the relationships between social psychological processes and pro-inflammatory responses in the context of health and aging. To do so, the proposed study will investigate the effect of an intervention aimed at increasing perceptions of generativity in lonely older adults on physical and mental health outcomes. Given that pro-inflammatory activity has been linked to both loneliness and poor health outcomes, the study will also examine the effect of the intervention on biological markers of inflammation (i.e., circulating and stimulated pro-inflammatory cytokines and pro-inflammatory gene expression). Participants (n=70) will be randomly assigned to a 6-week intervention aimed at increasing perceptions of generativity or a control condition. During pre- and post-intervention sessions, all participants will complete self-report measures of physical and mental health and have blood drawn (in order to assess biological markers of inflammation). It is hypothesized that participants in the generativity intervention, compared to those in the control condition, will show: 1) improved physical and mental health outcomes and 2) decreased pro-inflammatory activity from pre- to post-intervention. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that decreases in biological pro-inflammatory activity will mediate improvements in health outcomes. The present study will help advance the understanding of the impact of generativity on the lives of older adults, including its effects on health and inflammatory activity. This may inform a low-cost and low-effort way to improve health outcomes in older adults, especially those who may be most vulnerable to poor health outcomes, such as those who are lonely.