Abstract
Aim
The quality of life (QoL) of disaster-exposed survivors has always been a topic of concern. The aims of the present study were to explore the role of mindfulness in QoL in a relatively large sample of disaster-exposed survivors and to examine whether social support and posttraumatic growth (PTG) could be mediators.
Subject and methods
A total of 806 survivors were surveyed 10 years after the Wenchuan earthquake. A self-administered questionnaire was used to measure mindfulness, QoL, social support, PTG, and sociodemographic characteristics. Linear regressions and mediation analyses were performed to examine the associations between mindfulness, QoL, social support, and PTG.
Results
Of the survivors surveyed, 7.8% still reported poor or very poor QoL 10 years later. Correlation analyses indicated QoL was positively correlated with mindfulness, social support, and PTG. The PROCESS macro revealed that social support and PTG played multiple mediating roles in the relationship between mindfulness and QoL. Moreover, the association between mindfulness and QoL was mediated sequentially by social support and PTG.
Conclusions
QoL among disaster-exposed survivors can be improved through the enhancement of mindfulness, the provision of social support, and the promotion of PTG. Future clinical mindfulness-focused interventions for disaster-exposed survivors could also include intervening social support and PTG, which may have a synergistic effect on improving QoL.
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Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Code availability
Not applicable.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all participating Wenchuan earthquake survivors for their help with data collection.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.31871129); Research on the Processes and Repair of Psychological Trauma in Youth, Project of Key Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, MOE (Grant No.16JJD190001); Guangdong Province Universities and Colleges Pearl River Scholar Funded Scheme (GDUPS 2016).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Haoxian Ye, Dongfang Wang, Shiying Chen, Chunling Chen, Minyi Chen, Hanlai Ouyang, Jiaming Ding, and Fang Fan. Haoxian Ye, Dongfang Wang, and Xiaoyan Chen for writing-review and editing. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Haoxian Ye. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Ye, H., Wang, D., Chen, X. et al. Mediating roles of social support and posttraumatic growth in the relation between mindfulness and quality of life in disaster-exposed survivors. J Public Health (Berl.) 32, 931–941 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-023-01881-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-023-01881-w