跳至主要内容

Relationship between Depression and Aging Awareness among Frail Older Adults Living Alone in Japan

Depression not only has negative effects on frail syndrome; it is exacerbated in older adults with chronic diseases if they lack poor spousal and family support. In essence, solitary older adults—those who do not live with a spouse or family members—are highly prone to depression. So prevention and treatment of depression in older adults are an important issue. This study aimed to clarify the relationship between depression and aging awareness among older adults living alone with low-level long-term-care needs. 

Using a cross-sectional design, a hypothesis explorative analysis was conducted in the present study. Participants were older adults aged 65 years and older in Japan. Data were collected via an anonymous questionnaire. Participants were categorized based on their long-term care need level, from Support 1 to Care 2 according to the care insurance criteria in Japan. The questionnaire included: 1) the Geriatric Depression Scale-Short Version-Japanese (GDS); 2) items on aging life satisfaction at present, and positive and negative aging awareness in the past (when they were young); 3) the SF-8 to assess health-related quality of life; 4) the Lubben Social Network Scale-6 (LSNS-6); and 5) items on the use of care services. Data were analyzed using multiple logistic regression analysis. 

In total, 457 participants were recruited. Their mean age was 83.9 ± 6.5 years old, and 53.8% were aged 85 years or older. Over 60% of participants used home care and daycare or day service facilities. Among the participants, 39.8% of the participants had a GDS score of 6 and above. Further, participants aged 65 - 74 years and those requiring economic support tended to exhibit a high tendency for depression. Non-depressed participants had significantly more positive attitudes towards aging in the past and present, higher health-related QOL on all dimensions of the SF-8, and higher social network scores as compared to depressed participants. In the regression analysis, the GDS score significantly correlated with aging life satisfaction at present, negative aging awareness in the past, mental health, and social networks. 

In conclusion, depressive state was significantly associated with current positive and past negative attitudes towards aging in all models. The findings suggest that aging awareness needs to be monitored in frail older adults, and that broad-based community strategies targeting individuals before they grow old themselves are necessary to ensure that people of all generations regard the aging process in positive light.


Article by Yumi Okinaka, from Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.

Full access: http://mrw.so/4TVVJW

评论

发表评论

此博客中的热门博文

Does Immigration Promote the Investment of the Monopolistic Firm?

In the present paper, we examine the effect of increasing uncertainty of immigrants’ growth on the optimal timing of investment of a firm that has a monopolistic power over the labor market. It is revealed that when the uncertainty of immigrants’ growth is more than a threshold level, increasing uncertainty of immigrants’ growth accelerates the optimal timing of firms’ investment and enhances the economic growth, even if the uncertainty of immigrants’ growth is formulated by the geometric Brownian motion, which is in sharp contrast to the standard result that an increase in the uncertainty postpones the optimal timing. With an increase in the immigrants over the past ten years, workforces in the host countries have been growing significantly to the extent that the immigrants represent 70% of the increase in the workforce in Europe, and 47% in the United States as OECD indicates. In the present paper, we attempted to investigate the effect of increased uncertainty caused by the growi...
发表评论
阅读全文

Education Policy Implementation: A Mechanism for Enhancing Primary Education Development in Zanzibar

Education is one of the fundamental rights of individuals; therefore, the government of a country needs to develop and strengthen educational policy and quality as well as to ensure that everyone has equal access to basic education. The improvement of access and quality of education in the world is becoming as an essential factor in development, whereas the basic education (primary school), is acknowledged as a foundation of the higher educational development for every country. To fulfill this goal, governments introduce several policies and procedures; however, it requires some reforms and participation from the politician, policymakers, and other stakeholders to re-examine educational policy so that it can lead to multiplication and betterment of the reforms. Educational reforms actually focus on accountability. A positive educational development and reform is very challenging and needs more effort and strategy on how to use and utilize the resources effectively as such it can achie...
发表评论
阅读全文