Depressive rumination and life satisfaction among institution-dwelling Chinese older adults: the roles of perceived burdensomeness and social support from individuals within the institution

Abstract

Objectives: We examined how institution-dwelling older adults’ depressive rumination was associated with their life satisfaction by taking perceived burdensomeness as a mediator and social support from individuals within the institution (SSII) as a moderator.

Method: A total of 194 older adults from 24 institutions in four provinces of China completed a questionnaire survey.

Results: Depressive rumination was negatively associated with life satisfaction, and perceived burdensomeness mediated this association. Moreover, SSII moderated the indirect association between depressive rumination and life satisfaction through perceived burdensomeness. Specifically, depressive rumination had a negative effect on life satisfaction through perceived burdensomeness only for older adults with less SSII.

Conclusion: Our study indicated that depressive rumination could damage older adults’ life satisfaction by increasing their perceived burdensomeness. Fortunately, older adults’ perception of social support from individuals within the institution could attenuate this negative effect. This study has implications for designing intervention programs to improve the institution-dwelling older adults’ life satisfaction.

Keywords:

• Depressive rumination
• perceived burdensomeness
• social support
• life satisfaction
• institution-dwelling older adults

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71704017) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2020CDJSK01XK04).