Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-sjtt6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-06T17:22:55.107Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Positive mental health moderates the association between PTSD symptoms and subjective accelerated aging among older adults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2020

Yuval Palgi Open the ORCID record for Yuval Palgi [Opens in a new window]
Yuval Palgi*
Affiliation:
Department of Gerontology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: Yuval Palgi, Department of Gerontology and the Center for Research and Study of Aging, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, 199 Aba Khoushy Ave. Mount Carmel, Haifa 3498838, Israel. Phone: +972-54-6685805. Email: ypalgi@research.haifa.ac.il.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms are known for predicting accelerated aging. However, it has not been examined whether individuals are subjectively aware of this process. The present study examined whether PTSD symptoms predict subjective accelerated aging and whether positive mental health status moderates this relationship. One hundred and thirty-two community-dwelling older adults (M = 66.85, SD = 9.13) who were sampled through random dialing of Jewish residents in the south of Israel completed the questionnaire twice: At Wave 1 after the flare-up of an Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and at Wave 2, a year later. Participants reported their PTSD symptoms, positive mental health, and on their subjective accelerated aging a year later. Higher levels of PTSD symptoms and lower levels of positive mental health were separately related to increased subjective accelerated aging. Participants with a lower level of positive mental health demonstrated a stronger association between PTSD symptoms and subjective accelerated aging. These findings emphasize that individuals who suffer from higher levels of PTSD symptoms and specifically those with lower levels of positive mental health status tend to feel they are aging faster. This finding adds to previous research suggesting that alongside the physiological process of accelerated aging there is also a subjective similar process.

Keywords

posttraumatic stress symptomsongoing traumatic eventsviews on agingsubjective weathering hypothesismental-health-continuum
Type
Brief Report
Information
International Psychogeriatrics , Volume 32 , Issue 7: Issue Theme: Sleep and Sleep Disorders in Older Adults , July 2020 , pp. 885 - 889
Copyright
© International Psychogeriatric Association 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Avidor, S., Benyamini, Y. and Solomon, Z. (2014). Subjective age and health in later life: the role of posttraumatic symptoms. Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 71, 415–424. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbu150CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Green, S. (1991). How many subjects does it take to do a regression analysis? Multivariate Behavioral Research, 26, 499–510. doi: 10.1207/s15327906mbr2603_7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, A. F. (2013). An Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-Based Approach. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Kessler, R. C., Sonnega, A., Bromet, E., Hughes, M. and Nelson, C. B. (1995). Posttraumatic stress disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey. Archives of General Psychiatry, 52, 1048–1060.10.1001/archpsyc.1995.03950240066012CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Keyes, C. L., Wissing, M., Potgieter, J. P., Temane, M., Kruger, A. and Van Rooy, S. (2008). Evaluation of the mental health continuum–short form (MHC-SF) in Setswana-speaking South Africans. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 15, 181–192. doi: 10.1002/cpp.572CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O’Brien, R. M. (2007). A caution regarding rules of thumb for variance inflation factors. Quality & Quantity, 41, 673–690. doi: 10.1007/s11135-006-9018-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palgi, Y. (2016). Subjective age and perceived distance-to-death moderate the association between posttraumatic stress symptoms and posttraumatic growth among older adults. Aging & Mental Health, 20, 948–954. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2015.1047320CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Palgi, Y., Ayalon, L., Avidor, S. and Bodner, E. (2017). Changes in positive and negative affect as predictors of change in felt age: results from the health and retirement study. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12, 605–612.10.1080/17439760.2016.1221121CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shrira, A. (2014). Greater age-related decline in markers of physical, mental and cognitive health among Israeli older adults exposed to lifetime cumulative adversity. Aging & Mental Health, 18, 610–618. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2013.860951CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tsur, N., Levin, Y., Abumock, H. and Solomon, Z. (2018). One ‘knows’: self-rated health and telomere length among ex-prisoners of war. Psychology & Health, 33, 1503–1518. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2018.1509977CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ware, J. E., Kos inski, M. and Keller, S. D. (1996). A 12-item short-form health survey: construction of scales and preliminary tests of reliability and validity. Medical Care, 34, 220–233. doi: 10.1097/00005650-199603000-00003CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weathers, F. W., Litz, B. T., Herman, D. S., Huska, J. A. and Keane, T. M. (1993). The PTSD Checklist (PCL): Reliability, validity, and diagnostic utility. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, San Antonio, TX, USA.Google Scholar