Well-being in Poland: internal resources, meaning, and psychosocial factors

Well-being is a multidimensional phenomenon encompassing life satisfaction, positive affect, meaning, relationships, regulatory resources, resilience, and sociocultural context. Positive psychosocial factors are viewed as key components of mental health within positive psychiatry. However, it remains unclear whether the configurations of factors supporting well-being are organized similarly across national contexts. This scoping review aimed to map peer-reviewed empirical studies conducted in Polish samples and identify the most frequently examined positive psychosocial correlates, predictors, mediators, and moderators of well-being. The review included studies published between 2000 and 2025, identified through searches in PubMed, PsycINFO, and Embase. Eligible studies were peer-reviewed empirical papers based on Polish samples that examined positive psychosocial resources, protective factors, regulatory processes, or positive-functioning constructs relevant to the broader study of well-being. A separate global well-being outcome was not required for inclusion. The review was conducted in accordance with PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) recommendations. Due to heterogeneity in populations, measures, constructs, and models, a qualitative descriptive synthesis was conducted. Fifty-five studies were included. Internal resources were the most frequent domain (36 studies), followed by social factors (20), meaning-related variables (19), religiosity/spirituality (15) and resilience/regulatory processes (9). The Polish literature particularly highlights sense of coherence, self-efficacy, optimism, gratitude, self-compassion, psychological flexibility, positive orientation, and meaning in life. Social factors, religiosity/spirituality, and resilience more often appeared as multi-pathway, indirect, and context-dependent. Loneliness emerged as a key negative intersection between relationships, meaning, and well-being. The Polish body of research indicates a descriptive configuration in which internal resources and meaning-related processes are especially prominent. These findings do not yet confirm a structural model but provide a foundation for future longitudinal, comparative, and modelling studies, contributing a country-specific perspective to international well-being research.