Population aging has become a crucial problem in China. Recently, the Chinese government has adopted many strategies and policies to solve this problem and improve the quality of life of older individuals. The present study aimed to examine the effect of physical health on quality of life among older individuals in the context of Chinese culture and explore the potential mediating roles of positive cognition and negative emotions in the association between physical health and quality of life. Data were from the wave of 2017-2018 of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey. Data on physical health, quality of life, positive cognition, and negative emotions of 15,874 older people were included in the present study. Pathway analysis was conducted by using IBM SPSS AMOS 21.0, and double verified using PROCESS Macro for SPSS 3.5.3. Results showed that physical health was positively associated with quality of life among older individuals in the context of Chinese culture. The effect size was small to moderate. Positive cognition and negative emotions independently and serially mediated the linkage of physical health and quality of life. These findings provided empirical evidence for the activating event-belief-consequence theory of emotion and hierarchy of needs theory and indicated that Chinese older people focused more on physical health rather than mental health. Practitioners could teach older individuals strategies of emotion regulation and cognitive appraisal to improve the quality of life of older individuals.
Keywords: Chinese culture; negative emotion; older people; physical health; positive cognition; quality of life; serial mediation.