Ageing International最新文献

Retirement is a psycho social process. It refers to the phase of life when a person leaves his job and withdraws from active working life. Proper optimization of retirement is only possible when a person has pre planned his life with proper finances and saving or the government is providing him with a lot of social security benefits. However, such conditions rarely occur as a person is preoccupied in his pre retirement phases. But proper optimization of retirement can also take place when a person has high social intelligence which affects physical and mental health. Hence, this paper is an endeavor to look into the relevance of social intelligence which helps the people in their retirement process in the people. Thus, a survey was done to find the level of Social Intelligence in the people who are ageing and are going to be retired soon. Around 252 people between 55 to 70 years were studied from Delhi and NCR. The result indicated that middle aged and just retired people had high social intelligence as compared to older adults and the former were also able to optimize their retirement effectively for successful ageing. The older adults were not able to cope up with the various issues of retirement due to low social intelligence. Hence, further studies can be carried out to design proper training for enhancement of social intelligence in aged people for their effective optimization of retirement.

The number of older women are increasing more rapidly and it is estimated that by 2050, the number of elderly women over 60 years old will be 3.2 times that of 2000. Moreover, the number and rate of elderly women in cities where widowed life alone has increased. The study pays attention to the fragile and vulnerable group of urban elderly women. Hence, the purpose of the study to suggest psychological adjustment and guidance for ageing urban women. The study suggests that by adopting protective policies and measures in a targeted manner this problem can be resolved. It is not only a critical responsibility of the state and the government, but also the social responsibility of all sectors of society, including enterprises and non-profit sectors of society, and even every ordinary citizen to support the elderly women for making their rest of lives happier and enjoyable.

The current study explores the interaction effect of adversities and self-efficacy at baseline on quality of life (QoL) at follow-up among middle-aged and older Chinese women. 531 women were interviewed in 2008 and 226 of them were re-interviewed a year later using Quality of Life Ladder (QoLL), General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE), List of Threatening Experiences (LTE), Somatic Complaint Scale, and self-rated health. Respondents’ mean age at baseline was 55.7 (SD = 4.7, range: 50–78). Over a year’s time, respondents had a decline in quality of life and self-rated health (p < .001), experienced more life-threatening events (p < .05) and somatic complaints. The hierarchical multiple regression model, employed in the study, identifies three predictors of future quality of life after adding the interaction term ‘Previous LTE × Previous GSE × Previous household income’ — previous quality of life (β = .492, p < .001), previous LTE (β = -.292, p < .001), and the interaction term (β = .221, p < .05). This model explains 34.1% of the variance of future quality of life (Adjusted R² = .341, p < .001). The findings suggests that respondents’ good self-appraisal of coping resources could moderate the impact of adversities on their future quality of life. Interventions for promoting positive psychological growth among middle-aged and older adults should cover four domains, i.e. event-related factors, environmental factors, personal factors, and cognitive and coping responses. Traditional Chinese wisdom emphasizes the importance of understanding the bad (‘Yin’—the shady side) and the good (‘Yang’—the sunny side) aspect of life events. Future research may explore the Yin Yang perspective on life-threatening experiences and its applications in cross-cultural quality of life studies in the era of globalization.

This study investigates experiences of recent adverse and positive life events, and how these impact lonely older adults. Qualitative individual interviews were conducted with 53 community-dwelling, lonely older people aged 60 years and over. Analyses identified four key findings. First, the results pointed to a variety of recent life events in different domains (i.e., health, financial status, social network, living situation and meaningful use of time), which are experienced subjectively by participants. Second, life events occur at micro-biographical, meso-institutional, and macro-societal levels. Third, recent life events can signal gradual transitions or can constitute a breaking point. Fourth, while lonely older adults experience different recent adverse life events related to loss experiences, they also experience different positive recent life events, which might have the potential to increase their well-being or reduce feelings of loneliness. Finally, recent life events can have (cumulative) effects on their well-being. The conclusions highlight the need for an in-depth understanding of life events experienced in later life, given their potential role as balancing factors in the well-being of lonely older adults, as well as providing some implications for practice and policy.

Depressive disorder is the most prevalent mental health issue among the elderly. Researchers have studied associations between poor outcomes of health and depressive disorder. However, there is limited knowledge on the association of depressive disorder on hospital outcomes of care for patients admitted due to acute health problems. This study utilized a large dataset from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to examine associations between depressive disorder and (i) length of stay, (ii) hospital mortality, and (iii) hospital-acquired septicemia, for hospitalized Medicare patients 65 years and above. Bivariate analysis was firstly conducted between each one of the outcomes of interest and the depressive disorder variable, and then, to control for demographics, primary diagnosis, and comorbidities, multiple logistic regression was conducted for the binary outcomes (hospital mortality and hospital-acquired septicemia) and multiple linear regression for the continuous outcome, Length of Stay. After adjusting for patient gender, ethnicity, primary diagnosis, and comorbidities, the presence of depressive disorder in elderly Medicare patients was found to be associated with increased odds for hospital death (OR = 1.186, C. I = 1.030—1.365), and a shorter hospital length of stay (b = -.697, p < 0.001). Black race was found to be protective for death for patients with depressive disorder. Since depression has an effect on various behavioral aspects of patients, the increased risk for hospital death underlines the need for a holistic patient care approach for acute patients with depression, including psychologic support, effective patient-therapist communication, and patient empowerment.

Disaster can lead to stressful crises and life stress among individuals. One of the most vulnerable age groups to post-traumatic stress are older adults. As such, this study explored older Filipino adults’ living experiences pertaining to disaster during Typhoon Haiyan, highlighting the problems they encounter after the disaster and identifying factors that contribute to their disaster resilience. The researchers used a thematic analysis in the study among 11 older adults as participants. Three main themes were unveiled upon the analysis of the data: 1) feelings of powerlessness and selflessness within the self; 2) Individuals with positive and negative outlook, over time, slowly influence a positive outcome; and 3) accepting responsibility for one’s personal decisions and actions. Older adults’ immediate reaction after a disaster is the feeling of powerlessness. However, whether they have positive or negative outlooks about life, over time, these perspectives slowly influence a positive outcome, which leads to these older adults take hold on their responsibility as part of their personal decisions and actions to move forward. Gerontologists may suggest that older adults consider social support activities if they are receptive to them and may benefit from such activities, which can provide social contact, reduce alienation and isolation, and increase a sense of belonging, and life meaning.

Population aging is particularly pronounced in Italy. Recently, home-care services emerged as one of the desirable strategy when dealing with such situations of fragility. In this framework, we present the evaluation of a home-care service which was experimentally implemented by Fondazione Sacra Famiglia and Casa di Cura Ambrosiana in the 2017–2018 biennium. The service consisted of a twice-weekly nursing visit intended to monitor patient health conditions and to gather data constantly supervised by a geriatrician. The eligible population consisted of the users of San Carlo Hospital Emergency Department (91 individuals). Twenty of these individuals had access to the experimental home-care service. The results show the smaller probability of mortality for the treatment group compared to the control group, but similar probabilities in admissions to ER and in hospitalizations. These findings suggest that health home-care policies could reduce mortality by lessening the negative effects of relational isolation.

Although older adults can suffer from positive ageism as well as negative ageism and despite both forms being associated with negative health outcomes, positive ageism has received little attention from nursing researchers. In Middle Eastern culture, positive ageism may be misperceived by nurses as empathy or sympathy. This descriptive study was conducted on a convenience sample of 317 nurses caring for older adults and working in public and university-affiliated hospitals in Jordan, and the Relating to Older People Evaluation (ROPE) was used to measure the nurses’ positive ageism towards older adults. The results indicated that most nurses had positive ageism towards older adults, and that their ageism was significantly associated with their marital status, level of education, type of hospital they worked at, and number of older adults living in the same household. The study findings have several implications for clinical practice. Further research is needed to investigate positive ageism and its associated factors and to develop effective interventions targeting this problem. Further, there is a need to develop interventions aimed at educating nurses and changing their ageist attitudes and behaviors towards older adults.