Beyond the pretest-posttest design: A weekly diary study to investigate trajectories of positive and negative affect in older adults enrolled in a language learning intervention

J.G. Brouwer · Floor van den Berg · Remco Knooihuizen · Hanneke Loerts · Merel C. J. Keijzer

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Aging and Gerontology Research Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction Mental Health Research Topics

Abstract

A range of studies in gerontology and geriatrics have looked at changes in positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) from pre-test to post-test as an indicator of any given intervention’s effectiveness in improving well-being. However, this method of data collection ignores potential non-linear trajectories of affect during an intervention. This study aimed to examine potential non-linear trajectories of affect in older adults who were enrolled in a study that investigated the effects of a language learning intervention on cognitive function and psychosocial well-being. Participants completed a digital version of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) weekly over a period of 13 weeks during a language course. A total of 556 observations were collected out of 572 invitations to complete the questionnaire (97% completion rate). Results were analyzed with Generalized Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs), which can take into account non-linear patterns. Our sample included 44 older adults aged ≥65 ( M ± SD = 71 ± 4.4) recruited into three groups: (1) 18 older adults with (past) depression, (2) 12 older adults with cognitive impairment and (3) 14 control participants without depression or cognitive impairment. Our analysis found a clear non-linear change of positive affect over time in participants with (past) depression. We also found a significant linear reduction in negative affect in participants with (past) depression. Our study underscores the utility of collecting multiple data points per participant over time, and then analyzing those with methods that allow for ‘wiggly’ data. Based on our results, we speculate that this approach may be especially relevant for older adults with current or past depression.

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1988Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales.2010Emotional experience improves with age: Evidence based on over 10 years of experience sampling.2003Aging and emotional memory: The forgettable nature of negative images for older adults.2001Age-related differences and change in positive and negative affect over 23 years.2010Emotion Regulation in Older Age 2017The positivity effect: a negativity bias in youth fades with age 2018Analyzing dynamic phonetic data using generalized additive mixed modeling: A tutorial focusing on articulatory differences between L1 and L2 speakers of English 2018A Community Choir Intervention to Promote Well-Being Among Diverse Older Adults: Results From the Community of Voices Trial

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