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. 2025 May 8;25(1):318.
doi: 10.1186/s12877-025-05957-y.

Association between life satisfaction, sleep disturbance and mental health problems among the migrant older adults with children: a conditional process analysis based on per capita bedroom area

Mingli Pang  1   2   3   4 , Jieru Wang  1   2   3 , Hexian Li  1   2   3 , Guangwen Liu  1   2   3 , Xiaoxu Jiang  1   2   3 , Jing Xu  1   2   3 , Shixue Li  1   2   3 , Fanlei Kong  5   6   7
Affiliations

Association between life satisfaction, sleep disturbance and mental health problems among the migrant older adults with children: a conditional process analysis based on per capita bedroom area

Mingli Pang et al. BMC Geriatr. .

Abstract

Background: The relationship between life satisfaction and mental health problems had been confirmed in many existed studies, but the underlying mediating and moderating effect of sleep disturbance and per capita bedroom area (PCBA) behind this association had never been identified. This study aimed to explore the mediating role of sleep disturbance and the moderating effect of PCBA on the association between life satisfaction and mental health problems.

Methods: Multistage cluster random sampling method was used to select the participants and finally 613 migrant older adults with children (MOAC) were included in the survey. A conditional process model was performed to examine the relationship between life satisfaction and mental health problems, as well as the mediating effect of sleep disturbance and the moderating effect of PCBA.

Results: Life satisfaction was negatively associated with mental health problems, and sleep disturbance could mediate their association. Furthermore, the direct effect of life satisfaction on mental health problems and the indirect effect of sleep disturbance in the relationship were moderated by PCBA, but it only moderated the direct effect and the second indirect link (sleep disturbance-mental health problems) of the mediating effect. Both these two effects were stronger for MOAC with a low level of PCBA.

Conclusions: Life satisfaction had negative effect on mental health problems. PCBA moderated the direct effect of life satisfaction on mental health problems and the mediating effect of sleep disturbance on mental health problems. For MOAC with a low level of life satisfaction and high sleep disturbance, particularly those with a low level of PCBA, targeted implication for the community, family members and MOAC were proposed to improve the mental health of MOAC.

Keywords: Conditional process analysis; Life satisfaction; Mental health problems; Migrant older adults following children; Per capita bedroom area; Sleep disturbance.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The survey and data use have obtained the written informed consent of all participants. The research program of this was reviewed and approved by the ethical committee of Shandong University (No. 20180225) and was in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Consent for publication: Not Applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The proposed theoretical moderated-mediation model. Note: the first half indirect effect referred to the line from life satisfaction to sleep disturbance; the second half indirect effect referred to the line from sleep disturbance to mental health problems
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Conditional effects of PCBA on association between life satisfaction and mental health problems
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Conditional effects of PCBA on association between sleep disturbance and mental health problems
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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