This work focused on the translation and evaluation of the psychometric properties of two widely used scales for assessing sense of purpose in life - the Revised Sense of Purpose Scale (SOPS-2) and the Specific Purpose Orientations (SPO) scale - in the Ukrainian language. The SOPS-2 consisted of 14 items measuring three dimensions of purpose: awakening to purpose, awareness of purpose, and altruistic purpose. Meanwhile, the SPO included 12 items assessing three types of purpose: others-growth, self-growth, and career-focused purpose orientations. Renamed as the Revised Sense of Purpose Scale - Ukrainian Version (SOPS-2U) and the Specific Purpose Orientations - Ukrainian Version (SPO-U), these two scales underwent a thorough translation process by two multilingual scholars proficient in both Ukrainian and English languages, employing the committee approach. Then through analyses of two datasets, the factorial validity, construct validity, and reliability of the SOPS-2U and SPO-U were established. These translated scales provide reliable and valid tools for assessing life purpose among Ukrainian-speaking adults.•Recognizing the profound impact of life purpose on adult wellbeing, the availability of a psychometrically robust measurement tool for assessing this construct in the Ukrainian language becomes crucial; thus, we translated and validated two such tools.•The Revised Sense of Purpose Scale - Ukrainian Version (SOPS-2U) is valid for assessing awakening to purpose, awareness of purpose, and altruistic purpose dimensions in Ukrainian adults.•The Specific Purpose Orientations - Ukrainian Version (SPO-U) can be used with Ukrainian adults to further examine the specific types of purpose, such as others-growth, self-growth, and career-focused purpose orientations.

Research has evidenced that purpose in life helps to minimise the strains of providing informal care to a significant other, but little is known about whether this psychological resource influences the paths from stressors to the health outcomes of family caregiving and through which mechanisms it can exert this protective effect. This study aimed to explore the moderating role of purpose in life on the (mediated through adaptive coping) relationship between caregiver burden and psychological distress in haemodialysis caregivers. A cross-sectional study was conducted with a convenience sample of family caregivers (n = 173; M = 55.9, SD = 15.6 years old) of adults undergoing haemodialysis. A moderated-mediation model was computed to explore the interaction effects of purpose in life on the path between burden and distress, having adaptive coping behaviours as parallel mediators. Results showed that purpose in life had a buffering effect on the mediated (through acceptance coping) relationship between burden and distress (index of partial moderated-mediation: bsimple = -0.029, 95% bootstrap confidence interval (CI) [-0.070, -0.002]), and that this conditional effect was lowest at high levels of the moderator (at +1SD: bsimple = 0.038, SE = 0.026, 95% bootstrap CI [0.001, 0.098]). Use of emotional support (F(1,159) = 4.395, p = 0.038) and positive reframing (F(1,159) = 5.648, p = 0.019) also mediated this path. This study expands knowledge about the modifiable internal resources through which purpose in life can help promote psychosocial adjustment to the haemodialysis caregiving process. Mental health promotion initiatives aimed at this population need to consider combining different intervention approaches to foster purpose in life and train adaptive (and flexible) coping skills.

This longitudinal study examined the reciprocal relationship between the Big Five personality traits and sense of purpose over a 13-year period using a nationally representative sample of American adults (N = 11,010). The random intercept cross-lagged panel model revealed unidirectional effects: increases in sense of purpose predicted subsequent increases in openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion, as well as decreases in neuroticism. Conversely, changes in personality traits did not predict future changes in sense of purpose. One potential mechanism underlying this effect might involve the link between sense of purpose and optimal self-regulatory processes and outcomes, such as successful planning, goal-directed behaviour, and self-control, which promote gradual positive changes in personality traits. Another plausible mechanism may be the association between purpose and improved subjective well-being and reduced psychological distress, which have been found to predict positive changes in personality traits. These findings challenge previous research that has interpreted cross-sectional associations as evidence that personality traits are predictive of purpose, rather than the other way around. The findings that intentionally cultivating a strong sense of purpose may facilitate positive personality change in adulthood.

The COVID-19 pandemic deeply affected healthcare workers, although the impact may have differed according to different workplace contexts. The aim of this current research was to compare the psychopathology presented by hospital versus nursing home healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and to analyse the predictive role of purpose in life and moral courage in the appearance of psychopathology. This was an observational, cross-sectional study carried out on a sample of 108 healthcare workers, 54 each from a hospital or nursing homes, who were recruited during the 5 and 6th waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. Various self-reported scales were used to assess anxiety, depression, acute/post-traumatic stress disorder, drug and alcohol abuse, burnout, purpose in life, and moral courage. Compared to the hospital healthcare workers, nursing home healthcare workers had higher scores and a higher prevalence of anxiety (74.1% vs. 42%), depression (40.7% vs. 14.8%), and post-traumatic stress disorder (55.6% vs. 25.9). In the overall sample, purpose in life was a protective factor against psychopathology (OR = 0.54) and burnout (OR = 0.48); moral courage was a protective factor against depression (OR = 0.47) and acute stress (OR = 0.45); and exposure of family/friends to SARS-CoV-2 was a risk factor for acute stress (OR = 2.24), post-traumatic stress disorder (OR = 1.33), and higher burnout depersonalisation subscale scores (OR = 1.84). In conclusion, the increased presence of psychopathology in nursing home healthcare workers may be influenced by workplace and occupational contexts, personal factors such as exposure of family/friends to SARS-CoV-2, or internal dimensions such as purpose in life and moral courage. This knowledge could be useful for understanding how a future epidemic or pandemic might affect the mental health of healthcare workers in different labour contexts.

OBJECTIVE: Optimism and purpose in life are associated with improved health outcomes. More information is needed on biological mechanisms, including immunosenescence. We investigated if psychological well-being is associated with healthier immunosenescence-related measures including naïve and terminally differentiated CD4+ and CD8+ T cell percentages, CD4+:CD8+, and cytomegalovirus (CMV) IgG response.
METHODS: Participants were adults over age 50 from the Health and Retirement Study. Optimism was measured using the Life Orientation Test Revised. Purpose in life was assessed using the subscale from the Ryff psychological well-being measure. We examined the cross-sectional associations of optimism and purpose in life with measures of T cell subsets using linear regression and with CMV IgG using ordered logit regression, controlling for potential confounding factors.
RESULTS: The final analytic sample ranged from 7250 to 7870. After adjusting for sociodemographic factors, a 1-SD increment in optimism was associated with the percentage of naïve CD4+ T cells increasing by 0.6 (95%CI 0.2%, 1.0%). A 1-SD increment in purpose in life was associated with the percentage of naïve CD4+ T cells increasing by 0.9 (95%CI 0.5%, 1.3%) after adjusting for sociodemographic factors and the association was maintained after further adjustments for health conditions, depression, and health behaviors. For naïve CD8+ T cell percentages, CD4:CD8 ratios, and CMV IgG antibodies, associations were seen only in models that adjusted for age. No significant associations were seen in any models for the terminally differentiated CD4+ and CD8+ T cells.
CONCLUSIONS: We found associations of optimism and purpose in life with naïve CD4+ T cell percentages.

UNASSIGNED: We investigated the association of social participation with mental well-being among older people and whether purpose in life mediates the potential association.
UNASSIGNED: Cross-sectional (n = 1014) and longitudinal (n = 660, four-year follow-up) data comprised of three age cohorts (75, 80, and 85 years) of community-dwelling people. Life satisfaction was measured with the Satisfaction with Life Scale, depressive symptoms with the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, and purpose in life with the Scales of Psychological Well-Being purpose in life subscale. Social participation was assessed with questions concerning the frequency of meeting close friends and acquaintances, and volunteering. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.
UNASSIGNED: Higher social participation was associated with higher life satisfaction and fewer depressive symptoms both cross-sectionally and after a four-year follow-up. Higher purpose in life mediated the associations of more social participation with higher life satisfaction and fewer depressive symptoms cross-sectionally. In the longitudinal data, the mediation effect was not observed.
UNASSIGNED: Older people with frequent social participation who had a sense of purpose in their lives will likely have higher mental well-being than those with less social participation. Enabling and supporting them to conduct purposeful actions in social contexts may help maintain their mental well-being.

BACKGROUND: While research has shown a positive association between a higher sense of purpose in life and functional health, there is a gap in understanding its benefits for racially minoritized and low SES individuals. This study aimed to investigate the correlation between purpose in life and physical functional health in a diverse sample, hypothesizing that purpose in life would be negatively associated with functional difficulties, with potentially stronger associations in White and high SES groups.
METHODS: Data from the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span (HANDLS) study were utilized (166 participants, mean age 59.44 [SD = 8.28], 59.6% females, 65.06% Black participants, 40.36% below poverty). Purpose in life was measured by Ryff\'s Psychological Well-being Purpose in Life subscale. Functional health was measured by functional difficulties in mobility and daily living. Race (Black and White) and poverty status (above and below) were used as moderators to probe the purpose-functional health association using zero-inflated Poisson regression while adjusting for age, education, depressive symptomology, and previous functional difficulties in four hierarchical models.
RESULTS: Results showed that purpose in life was negatively associated with functional difficulty, indicating fewer difficulties in mobility and daily activities among those with a high sense of purpose. While the association did not remain significant after including previous functional difficulty as a covariate in Model 4, suggesting that race may not be a consistent moderator, poverty status remained a consistent moderator. The association was stronger for individuals above the poverty level.
CONCLUSIONS: These findings underscore the complex interplay between purpose in life, race, poverty status, and functional health, emphasizing the importance of considering socioeconomic factors in interventions aimed at eliminating functional health disparities among diverse adult populations.

OBJECTIVE: Providing care to others can exert a profound impact on caregivers\' sense of purpose or meaning in life, thereby reciprocally influencing the caregivers\' overall health and well-being. This study aims to investigate whether the sense of purpose in life moderates the association between loneliness and caregiving stress among family caregivers of people with mental health problems.
METHODS: A sample of family caregivers of people with mental health problems (N = 468, 57.1 % female) drawn from the 2020 survey of the Caregiving in the U.S. was investigated. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and a multiple regression with an interaction term were performed.
RESULTS: Higher levels of loneliness were associated with enhanced caregiving stress. Moreover, after demographic and care-related factors were controlled for, the association between loneliness and caregiving stress was moderated by purpose in life; namely, as the sense of purpose in life increased, so did the intensity of the relationship between loneliness and caregiving stress.
CONCLUSIONS: Reducing loneliness or strengthening the sense of purpose helps alleviate caregiving stress, and lonely family caregivers with a strong sense of purpose deserve extra attention.

Purpose in life is a psychological resource that has been associated with better regulation of stress. The present research reports a coordinated analysis of the association between purpose in life and subjective stress and evaluates potential sociodemographic and mental health moderators of this association.
With individual participant data from 16 samples (total N=108,391), linear regression examined the association between purpose in life and general subjective feelings of stress, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics.
Greater purpose in life was associated with less subjective stress (meta-analytic estimate=-.228, 95% Confidence Interval=-.292, -.164; p<.001). Interaction terms between sociodemographic factors and purpose tested in the individual samples and synthesized with meta-analysis were not significant, which indicated that the association between purpose and stress was similar across age, sex, race, ethnicity, and education. The association was also not moderated by psychological distress. Meta-regressions further indicated that this association was generally similar across scale length, content of the purpose measure, and across samples from Eastern and Western countries.
The associations reported are observational. Experimental work is needed to evaluate causality.
Purpose in life is associated with less subjective stress across populations. Less subjective stress may be one mechanism through which purpose contributes to better mental and physical health.

UNASSIGNED: The purpose in life can motivate individuals to realize that life is essential for existence and well-being. Adults might experience crises that can lead to a lack of purpose in life. Consequently, promoting purpose in life is necessary, but it requires a suitable measurement scale.
UNASSIGNED: This scoping review aimed to identify and map the content, psychometric properties, and answer option scales of instruments intended to measure purpose in life in adult populations.
UNASSIGNED: A scoping review was employed.
UNASSIGNED: The database used was PubMed. The libraries were APA PsycNet, Wiley Online Library, and Cochrane Library. The search strategy was performed between 1 November 2023 and 14 February 2024.
UNASSIGNED: This review used the scoping review framework described by Arksey and O\'Malley. The identified instruments were assessed for quality based on the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) criteria. This study also used the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) reporting guideline.
UNASSIGNED: A total of 348 studies were identified, and seven articles were involved in the final synthesis. These seven articles included five instruments measuring the concept of purpose in life, of which two instruments had two versions: 1) Purpose in Life Test (20 items, 4 items); 2) Life Engagement Test (6 items); 3) Psychological Well-Being (120 items, 18 items); 4) Self-Assessment Goal Achievement (9 items); and 5) National Institutes of Health Tuberculosis Meaning and Purpose Scale Age 18+ (18 items). The validity of all instruments was tested using factor analysis, known groups, face, concurrent, convergent, discriminant, and construct validity. The reliability of four instruments was tested by Cronbach\'s alpha and Spearman-Brown formula.
UNASSIGNED: Five instruments measuring purpose in life in the adult population with adequate psychometric properties were identified. The clinical implication of this study suggests that nurses may consider employing an appropriate instrument to assess the purpose of life in the adult population, thus enabling them to offer holistic, individualized care to adults, particularly addressing the spiritual dimension.