title: Future orientation and health quality of life in primary care: vitality as a mediator.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Temporal perspective, including views about future goals, may influence motivational processes related to health. An adaptive sense of future orientation is linked to better health, but little research has examined potential underlying factors, such as vitality.
  
  
  METHODS
  In a sample of 101 primary care patients, we examined whether belief in the changeability of the future was related to mental and physical energization and, in turn, to health-related quality of life. Participants were working, uninsured primary care patients, who completed self-report measures of future orientation, vitality, and health-related quality of life.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mediation models, covarying age, sex, and race/ethnicity indicated that vitality significantly mediated the association between future orientation and the outcomes of general health, mental health, social functioning, bodily pain, and role limitations due to emotional and physical reasons. Vitality exerted an indirect-only effect on the relation between future orientation and physical functioning.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings suggest that adaptive beliefs about the future may promote, or allow access to, physical and mental energy and, in turn, may result in better mental and physical health functioning. Individual-level and public health interventions designed to promote future orientation and vitality may beneficially influence quality of life and well-being.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, East Tennessee State University, 420 Rogers Stout Hall, Johnson City, TN, 37614, USA, hirsch@etsu.edu.
authors.forename: Jameson K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Hirsch
authors.forename: Danielle
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Molnar
authors.forename: Edward C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Fuschia M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Sirois
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*