Ageing International最新文献

This bibliometric analysis endeavors to bridge a gap in existing research on social support for the older adults, focusing on the theme of ageing. The primary objective is to provide a comprehensive overview of scholarly advancement of previous research papers in this domain, employing a bibliometric approach. A dataset inclusive of publications up to February 2024 from Scopus database has been compiled, capturing pertinent information on older adults’ social support. Employing both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, the study offers a historical panorama of research trends. Through bibliometric techniques, significant articles, authors, journals, organizations, and countries contributing to this field are identified. The analysis unveils the current research status, elucidating key contributors, influential publications, and emerging thematic trajectories within ageing studies. Citation patterns and literature examination aid in identifying influential factors shaping the scholarly landscape. This research significantly enhances understanding of formal and informal social support for the older adults, filling existing research lacunae while spotlighting key contributors and burgeoning areas of interest. The findings of relevant studies based on PRISMA screening, a total of 152 research papers were screened. Seventeen papers were excluded because they did not specifically address social support for older adults. Three review papers and four others were removed due to being out of scope. Finally, 128 documents were retained for bibliometric analysis. The publication trend stands at 3.73%, indicating a significant increase in scholarly interest in social support for older adults.

Telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic grew expansively and provided patients with care when there were substantial movement restrictions. We examined access to internet and telehealth services as well as factors associated with telehealth use among older New York City residents. From December 2020 to March 2021, we conducted a random digit dial phone survey, calling listed New York City landline phone numbers. A total of 676 individuals 70 years or older were recruited; 62% were ages 70–79 and 38% were 80 years or older. Forty-five percent self-identified as White, 21% as Non-Hispanic Black or African American, 20% as Latinx, and 14% as another race. Sixty-three percent were female and 37% were male. Twenty percent did not have access to internet. During the prior three months, 44% indicated having a phone or video telehealth visit. Compared to White participants, Black participants had 2.15-fold higher telehealth use (CI: 1.33–3.44, P-Value: < .001), Latinx participants had 2.27-fold higher telehealth usage (1.19–4.27, P-Value: < .001), and those of another race had 3.45-fold higher telehealth usage (CI: 1.67–7.08, P-Value: < .001). Older Black, Latinx, and those of another race were more likely to use telehealth than White older New Yorkers. However, overall, a substantial percent did not have access to the internet, limiting their access to telehealth and their ability to seek pandemic related resources.

Violence and abuse by grandchildren towards their grandparent kinship carers is an important but under-researched issue. Research evidence on the perceived legitimacy of aged-related myths, beliefs, and witchcraft accusations against older people, especially grandparents, in Ghana and Africa suggest that violence and abuse against grandparent kinship carers could be common. This study explored the types of violence or abuse experienced by grandparent kinship carers, and the meanings grandparents associate with the abuse. Thirty-one grandparents were recruited from four communities in Ghana following a horizontal network sampling approach and interviewed using a qualitative in-depth narrative storytelling strategy. Analysis of the narratives revealed three common types of abuse experienced by the grandparent kinship carers which were perpetrated by children living under their care: (1) insults and verbal abuse, (2) stealing and financial exploitation, and (3) physical threats. However, the grandparents rationalised and justified the abusive behaviours by attributing them to factors within the children’s eco-system, such as friends and household members. The findings highlighted three crucial interrelated factors that underlie these incidents of violence including cultural beliefs around witchcraft, family structural dynamics, and grandparents’ attitudes towards violence. Practical recommendations, including the development of a community normative change program, have been proposed to address violence by grandchildren towards grandparent kinship carers in Ghana.

The study examines the exclusion of older people using a multidimensional approach to understand the different domains of exclusion. Particularly, it evaluates the risk factors of old-age social exclusion, focusing on the level of exclusion across three domains such as social relations, economic and material resources, and social activities, as well as the total exclusion score. Using secondary data from the Building Knowledge Base on Population Ageing in India (BKPAI) survey, the study employed bivariate descriptive and multinomial logistic regression models to assess the factors that affect social exclusion for all three domains, as well as the total exclusion score. Results for the total social exclusion score reveal that older people in their later ages, women, from rural areas, without schooling, living alone, without work, and having poor physical health, experienced a severe risk of exclusion. Notably, older people at later ages (70+) from rural areas without schooling experienced both moderate and severe exclusion in all the domains, as well as in the total exclusion score. While analysing exclusion across all three domains, the study found that older people were most at risk of exclusion in the domains of economic and material resources, followed by the domain of social relations. Thus, ageing policies should consider these micro-level risk factors associated with these two domains to combat the exclusion and improve their quality of life.

The study of sexuality in the ageing population had a more recent development than other topics, even though it is undoubling its relevance as part of the well-being of each individual. Therefore, to advance more in research is essential to look back and have a prospect of what kind of research has been done on it, identifying gaps in the literature for future studies. This paper aims to present a panorama of the research on sexuality and ageing in Latin America for the last five years (2017–2021). The data collection was done through the Web of Science platform and focused on those papers with the SciELO Citation Index, one of the most prestigious indexations among Latin-American journals. There were included papers from Latin-American countries written in Spanish or English. There were analyzed 26 research articles in total. The results give a panorama of what had been done in studies about sexuality and ageing in Latin America. Among those highlights, the absence of studies concentrates only on sexuality and ageing. Also, more quantitative studies are not comparable between countries, cross-sectional and descriptive. Finally, it is identified some gaps and challenges that need to be addressed by researchers in the future.

Despite exploring factors, little is known about sleep quality and room sharing in older adults. To examine differences in sleep quality among older adults as a function of bed/room sharing during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-sectional study was conducted in Brazil and enrolled 1,123 older adults aged 60 years and older. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to assess sleep quality and sleep duration. Bed or room sharing was assessed using a single question (“do you have a bed partner or a roommate?” “no bed partner or roommate”; “partner/roommate in other room”; “partner in the same room, but not same bed”; “partner in same bed”). Between group comparisons were performed with ANCOVA adjusting for confounders. The group “partner in the same bed” reported significant lower global PSQI scores compared to the “no bed or roommate partner” group (6.00 ± 0.27 versus 7.22 ± 0.23, respectively; p = 0.029). Furthermore, the group “partner in same bed” reported superior (p < 0.001) sleep duration (7.42 ± 0.09 hours) compared with older adults in the “no bed or roommate partner” (6.82 ± 0.08 hours), “partner or roommate in another room” (6.77 ± 0.14 hours; p < 0.001), and “partner in the same room but not in same bed” (6.82 ± 0.11 hours; p < 0.001) groups. The findings suggest that sharing a bed with a partner seems to be associated with significant better quality and duration of sleep among older adults.

Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) as a type of bacterial infection are the most common infections in older people. The present study was conducted with the aim of combining, summarizing, unifying, resolving inconsistencies in the results of preliminary studies, investigating the effect of potential factors and estimating the global prevalence of UTIs in the older persons through a systematic review and meta-analysis. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, the articles published in the period of 1982–2022 were analyzed. The articles were searched in Iranian databases of SID and MagIran, as well as international databases including PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science (WoS), and Google Scholar through the relevant and validated keywords using MeSH/Emtree. Thirty-six articles with a sample size of 4,207,470 people met the inclusion criteria for meta-analysis. Global prevalence of UTIs in the older persons was 23.6% (95% Confidence Interval: 19.4–28.4). The highest prevalence of UTIs in the older persons was in the following sub-groups: Africa (30%; 95% CI: 12.7–55.8), women (30%; 95% CI: 14.6–51.7), diagnosis with urine culture (25.3%; 95% CI: 18.3–33.8), and residents in the nursing home (47.2%; 95% CI: 24.2–71.5). The results of the present study showed that the prevalence of UTIs was high in the older persons, especially in women and residents of nursing homes. Therefore, it is recommended that health officials and policymakers pay more attention to the prevention and control of UTIs in older adults.

In this paper, we evaluate a pre-pandemic multi-dimensional healthy aging program promoted by an Italian private Foundation to provide new insights on interventions that address both health and social needs within an age-friendly community framework. Using propensity score matching and linear regression models, with specific controls for individuals’ self-selection into the program, we compare lifestyles, physical health, mental conditions, and healthy life expectancy of subjects enrolled into the program with those of similar, but non-enrolled, subjects. Our main finding is that, to be more effective, healthy aging interventions should target the key dimensions of aging - physical, mental, and social - in a holistic approach. Indeed, we show that the multi-dimensionality of the healthy aging intervention under study - the contemporaneous target of older adults’ physical, mental, and social health - is crucial in improving both quantity and quality of life.

The aging population, often burdened with multimorbidity and polypharmacy complexities, requires comprehensive care during healthcare transitions. These transitions contribute to increased prescriptions, exacerbating polypharmacy and frailty in older individuals. Medication reconciliation, a preventive strategy, optimizes medication lists through systematic analysis, particularly benefiting older patients grappling with polypharmacy. This practice holds substantial potential in enhancing patient safety during care transitions. Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate the discrepancies detected during the practice of medication reconciliation at the admission, discharge, or transfer of older individuals in a ward in Brazil. This is a single-cohort study of patients admitted to an older adult care ward in Brazil, monitored from September 2021 to April 2022. Older individuals hospitalized in the ward, exhibiting the characteristic clinical profile of multimorbidity and polypharmacy, were observed to identify discrepancies in the practice of medication reconciliation conducted as part of pharmaceutical care services. Medication reconciliation was carried out upon admission, discharge from the ward for older adult care, or transfer to other healthcare units. Sixty older individuals were monitored during the study period in the ward. The use of polypharmacy at home was evident in more than 70% of patients, and multimorbidity was present in over 90% of patients. On average, 8.6 discrepancies were identified per patient (± 4.7). Upon admission to the older adult care ward, 501 discrepancies were identified and assessed, decreasing to 200 at the time of hospital discharge or transfer to other units. In total, 48 medication errors were identified in the evaluated prescriptions and ongoing pharmacotherapy. The use of polypharmacy proved to be a contributing factor that increased the identification of discrepancies in medication reconciliation (p < 0.001). Analyzing medication reconciliation discrepancies uncovers intentional and unintentional aspects in prescriptions, with medication quantity, especially in polypharmacy, linked to potential harm. Continuous monitoring proved crucial, significantly enhancing patient safety in the older adult care ward.