China's elderly people have made up a large proportion of the whole , and the study on mental health of older adults is necessary. As reported, empty-nest families account for almost 25% of elderly household in China, and would increase to 90%by 2030.As a special group, mental health and its related factors are very important problems for the empty-nesters. So, at present, the empty-nesters’ mental health problem is one of the primary problems affecting China's social development .
The current findings showed that the empty-nesters were mostly lower education level, married, having 1 type chronic disease, non-religious and exercising regularly compared with non-empty-nesters. Differences of distribution between the two groups existed in education level, possibly because most of empty-nesters lived in rural places where lower level of education had. In China, if the old people was single(divorced or widowed), children or other immediate relatives would live with them and take care of them. Also, most of the empty-nesters had non-religious, which was consistent with previous study.Empty-nesters often had 1 type chronic disease, which maybe caused by upturn living standards and less health knowledge. Differences of distribution between two groups existed in physical exercise possibly because the empty-nesters had more free time than non-empty-nesters, Chinese non-empty-nesters often need to take care of their grandchildren.
Three fourths of our participants had depressive symptoms, which was similar to a previous study in Chizhou . That means we should pay more attention to old people’ mental health in Anhui, China. However, there were some findings inconsistent with previous studies [13,22]; our study revealed that no significant differences existed in SWB and depression between the two groups. This was an unexpected and interesting result. What is the reason? During the investigation, we found that most participants of empty-nesters lived nearby their children, though they did not live in the same house, they could meet each other easily. In busy season, they often worked alongside children in the fields, in leisure time, they often got together to take part in activities such as going to market and playing poker. Our result showed that no significant difference between the two groups in monthly individual income, which may narrow the gap between the empty-nesters and non-empty-nesters.
This survey found that SWB was negatively related to depression in both groups, which was in line with the previous study.Due to the lack of mental health care from the children, the elderly people were more likely to have negative emotions such as depression, which will affect their SWB and thus their life quality. Another interesting finding from this survey was that SWB negatively related to economy situation, if elderly were rich, they would have lower SWB. Psychological needs would be pursued while physiological needs had been satisfied, that maybe the most possible reason of this result. On the other hand, for the non-empty-nesters group, if their family had more monthly individual income, they would have higher SWB. Those indicate that children’s prosperous life is more important to elderly people than themselves. For the empty-nesters group, the older they were, the higher SWB they had, that maybe because the longer they lived, the more content they would be. We also found that the higher of education level, the lower of SWB in empty-nesters group. The most possible reason was educated elderly people would pursue higher psychological needs. These findings prompt us to focus on that personal wellness but a poor family, older and educated elderly people, tries to satisfy their psychological needs.
Besides some aforementioned differences, multivariate analyses still showed several disparity factors in SWB between the two groups, including age, marital status, living mode, and religious belief. Based on empty-nesters as a vulnerable population, older, lower education level, married, living with spouse, religious and lower depression level might be promoting factors for SWB. Nevertheless, higher education level and lower depression level were possible promoting factors among non-empty-nesters. Multivariate analyses also showed several disparity factors in GDS between the two groups, including living mode, religious belief, physical exercise and economy situation. More monthly individual income, living with spouse, non-religious, frequent physical exercise, and higher SWB might be protective factors for GDS among empty-nesters. Nevertheless, worse economy situation, more monthly individual income and lower depression level were perhaps protective factors among non-empty-nesters. So, this study showed that we should formulate different effective measures for the two groups to increase their SWB and reduce the prevalence of depression depending on their related factors.
This study had several limitations. First, this study was cross-sectional, the results cannot explain causal relationships among the variables. Second, limited location and sample size of the study would reduce the generality of our result. Thus, these findings may not be representative of the elderly populations in other areas. Because of these limitations, the results of this study should be reviewed cautiously.