Stressful work conditions, positive affect, and physical health of middle-aged couples: A dyadic analysis

Life course trajectories of chronic financial strain and acute stress reactivity: Steeling in response to recovery from strain

The steeling hypothesis suggests experiencing moderate strain may improve an individual's ability to cope with future strain, whereas crisis theory suggests that experiencing temporary strain will reduce the effect of future strain. The current study improves on past research by utilizing data from two independent prospective panel studies (one of 553 white rural Midwesterner women and 451 men and one of 624 African American women) spanning 26 and 22 years, respectively. We utilize growth mixture modeling to identify latent groups based on trajectories of financial strain and test interactions between class membership and later acute stressful events on chronic illness and physical health using three subscales from the RAND SF-12. We find being a group that experienced a period of temporary strain weakened the effect of later acute stressors on physical health for both samples and chronic illness for the African American sample. Results support crisis theory and highlight the importance of considering chronic strain as a life course process.

Protecting Nurses from Mistreatment by Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study on the Roles of Emotional Contagion Susceptibility and Emotional Regulation Ability

In recent years, patient mistreatment of healthcare workers, especially nurses, has been frequent, endangering the interests of organizations while also threatening nurses’ own development. This study aims to examine from the perspective of nurses’ personal interests whether mistreatment by patients decreases nurses’ workplace well-being and career commitment, and how their susceptibility to emotional contagion and emotional regulation ability might mitigate these negative effects. This study adopted a cross-sectional study design (data were collected through self-reported questionnaires with a two-month time lag between the months of August–October 2017). A total of 289 nurses from three hospitals in Shandong province, China, were recruited to participate in our study. The results reveal that mistreatment by patients is negatively related to nurses’ workplace well-being and career commitment. Emotional contagion susceptibility moderates the relationships between mistreatment by patients and career commitment, while there is no significant buffering effect of mistreatment by patients on workplace well-being. Emotional regulation ability moderates the relationships between mistreatment by patients and both workplace well-being and career commitment. These results suggest that improvements in nurses’ emotional regulation ability and susceptibility to emotional contagion can alleviate the harmful impacts of mistreatment by patients.

How Midlife Chronic Stress Combines with Stressful Life Events to Influence Later Life Mental and Physical Health for Husbands and Wives in Enduring Marriages

Objectives: To investigate how midlife chronic stress (40-50 years) and subsequent acute stressful events (50-65 years) influence husbands' and wives' later life mental and physical health (65+ years). Methods: Dyadic structural equation modeling was used with prospective data over 25 years from 256 husbands and wives in enduring marriages. Results: For both spouses, midlife chronic stress influenced the occurrence of subsequent acute stressful life events, which in turn influenced both depressive symptoms and poor physical health in later years. For both spouses, midlife chronic stress also directly influenced depressive symptoms. Wives' midlife chronic stress also directly influenced their own poor physical health and husbands' depressive symptoms in later years. Discussion: These findings enhance our knowledge about the long-term joint influence of midlife chronic stress and acute stressful life events on health outcomes of husbands and wives in later years and identify dependencies between spouses, which can inform health preventive intervention programs.

Aging Together in Enduring Couple Relationships: A Life Course Systems Perspective

This article introduces and demonstrates the use of an integrated life course systems perspective to advance the study of the aging processes of couples in enduring relationships. This objective is accomplished by bridging the life course and systems perspectives to conceptualize the couple as a functioning system and to locate couple dynamics within a longitudinal life course context in order to identify multilevel relational mechanisms that explain partners' aging outcomes in their broader socioeconomic and longitudinal context. Informed by this integrated theoretical perspective, testable hypotheses related to aging processes are derived, and analytical methodologies that can advance the research on couple aging processes are demonstrated. Identifying these relationship-health processes and contextual considerations provides insight into leverage points for the development and implementation of prevention and intervention efforts to facilitate positive aging outcomes. Directions for further theoretical and analytical advances in the area of couple aging are discussed.