Effects of evacuation in late adulthood: analyzing psychosocial well-being in three cluster groups of Finnish evacuees and non-evacuees

Abstract

Objectives: We studied the long-term effects of early separation among aging Finnish evacuees and non-evacuees. A broad set of outcome variables reflecting the psychosocial well-being of both groups in 2005 was analyzed. The role of resilience was also analyzed.Method: To identify persons with similar patterns of psychosocial well-being among both evacuated (n = 887) and non-evacuated persons (n = 1748), a cluster analysis was conducted, using the mixture model of latent class analysis/latent profile analysis method. The psychosocial well-being of the evacuees and non-evacuees in 2005 was predicted by multinomial logistic regression analysis, with the nominal cluster variable as the dependent variable.Results: Although the evacuees had experienced early separation trauma, they were not faring worse than the non-evacuees regarding psychosocial well-being in 2005. Favorable rearing home circumstances are a protective factor during the entire life span, when the psychosocial well-being of both groups was predicted in 2005. Sense of coherence was a significant predictor of psychosocial well-being. To rejoin the rearing family was stressful for many evacuees.Conclusion: The results show that even long-term separation from one's parents during childhood must be understood as representing a developmental context which makes the emergence of problems either less likely or more likely, depending on other risk and protective factors in both the rearing home and the foster family. After the war, when the evacuees returned home the families should have received help and support to amend the reunion.

Keywords:

• aging
• early separation
• psychosocial well-being

Note

Notes

1. As Karelia was the border region between Finland and the Soviet Union, it was most adversely affected by the war. Roughly 400,000 people, virtually the whole Karelian population, had to be relocated to other areas of Finland already in 1940 as a consequence of the Moscow Peace Treaty between the Soviet Union and Finland, which ceded Karelia to the Soviet Union.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland [project number 1134432] and the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation.