Psychosocial wellbeing in the Central and Eastern European transition: An overview and systematic bibliographic review

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a systematic review of literature on the psychosocial wellbeing of populations in Central and Eastern Europe during the transition period subsequent to the fall of the Soviet Bloc. A revision of research addressing emotional wellbeing trends in this period and theoretical models wascarried in order to verify their validity in the analysis of empirical studies. Hence, a systematic bibliographicreview was conducted, aiming to find possible subjective mediators between social variables derived from changesand emotional wellbeing. The results of the review show that subjective mediators such as locus of control,perceived control, self-efficacy beliefs, perceived familial support, and the subjective evaluation of social changeexplain part of the relationship between macrosocial changes and emotional wellbeing. Results appear coherentwith proposed multidimensional models of social change and mental health, although further research should beconducted to determine the specific weight of these phenomena in individual emotional wellbeing.