scholarly journals MAKING THE AGING EXPERIENCE WORTHWHILE: HOW SOCIAL INTERACTION CONTRIBUTES TO ACTIVE AGING

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S533-S533
Author(s):  
Daniel Doh ◽  
Kwadwo Adusei-Asante ◽  
Vicki Banham

Abstract In most parts of the world, people are now living longer lives, which presents both opportunities and concerns over how to make the ageing process a worthwhile experience. The World Health Organisation’s Active Ageing model became a prominent global policy response since 2002 and has evolved into different country-level ageing policies. While a considerable volume of literature exists on active ageing – testing the validity of its various components, there is limited empirical evidence of how social interaction contributes to active ageing for older people and how it can be promoted through policy. In this paper, we examine social interaction and how it contributes to lived experiences of active ageing among a sample of 30 older Ghanaians living in Australia and Ghana. Our findings confirm the significance of social interaction for active ageing, and shows that social interaction creates a sense of purpose for living, which leads to the ability of the individual to build resilience, which mitigates anxieties and pains associated with ill health (especially for frail older people); enhances self-motivation for play and fun; empowers the individual to explore opportunities for continuous activity including leisure, and improves the general feeling of happiness resulting in active ageing – quality of life. The paper’s main argument is that social interaction presents potentials for improving the quality of life (active ageing) for older people and needs to be carefully considered in policy, research and practice.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Olivera

Abstract To shed light on the quality of the ageing experience in Europe and its heterogeneity, this study adapts and computes the Active Ageing Index—an index constructed at the country level to monitor ageing quality in Europe—at the individual level. This strategy allows the measuring of inequality in the experience of active ageing and is flexible enough to consider different value judgements in the overall assessment of the quality of life while ageing. The study examines the predictors of this inequality by using regressions with a Gini-recentred influence function. It finds that education plays a very significant role in reducing inequality, though its influence varies across countries. Furthermore, the study uncovers large variance in the quality of the ageing experience across Europe. For instance, more than 50% of the populations of Romania, Lithuania and Bulgaria show a level of active ageing quality lower than that of the bottom decile of the distribution in Sweden.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Stella Epifanio ◽  
Federica Andrei ◽  
Giacomo Mancini ◽  
Francesca Agostini ◽  
Marco Andrea Piombo ◽  
...  

The COVID-19 pandemic that has hit the world in the year 2020 has put a strain on our ability to cope with events and revolutionized our daily habits. On 9 March, Italy was forced to lockdown to prevent the spread of the infection, with measures including the mandatory closure of schools and nonessential activities, travel restrictions, and the obligation to spend entire weeks in the same physical space. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures on quality of life (QoL) in a large Italian sample, in order to investigate possible differences in QoL levels related to both demographic and pandemic-specific variables. A total of 2251 Italian adults (1665 women, mainly young and middle adults) were recruited via a snowball sampling strategy. Participants were requested to answer to an online survey, which included demographic and COVID-related information items, and the World Health Organization Quality of Life BREF questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). The results showed statistically significant differences in QoL depending on a number of variables, including sex, area of residence in Italy, and being diagnosed with a medical/psychiatric condition. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess QoL during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, therefore the present findings can offer guidelines regarding which social groups are more vulnerable of a decline in QoL and would benefit of psychological interventions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-122
Author(s):  
Rizky Firman ◽  
Sri Mugianti ◽  
Imam Sunarno ◽  
Sri Winarni

Chronic renal failure (CRF) is a public health problem in the world and is now recognized ascommon diseases with risk of hemodialysis therapy. Hemodialysis can have an impact to the patientquality of life. The aim of the research was to describe the patient quality of life with renal failure underghemodialysis at Mardi Waluyo Blitar hospital. The research used a descriptive research design. Thepopulation was all patients with renal failure which registered in Hemodialysis of Mardi Waluyo Blitarhospital on October-December 2014 as many as 84 patients. The sample was 34 patients selected byaccidental sampling. The data collection was conducted on March 30th – April 4th, 2015. The datacollecting used questionnaires of The World Health Organization Quality of Life (QoL WHO) whichdescribed physical health, psychological, social relationships, and environment. In general the qualitylife of renal failure patient underrgo hemodialysis in bad category was 55.9% (19 patients). Thiscondition was due to a chronic disease and its complications potentially stressors including renalfailure patient. Stressors that arise caused by environmental conditions, psychological state, and physicalhealth. The study recommended that health services were expected to provide comfortability, improvemaintenance functions, improve interpersonal relationships, and counseling.


Autism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136236132110518
Author(s):  
Jacqui Rodgers

The purpose of this letter to the editors is to highlight to the readership of Autism the recommended use of the Autism Quality of Life measure (ASQoL) for research with autistic adults. The ASQoL was developed for use alongside the World Health Organization Quality of Life – Bref (WHOQOL-Bref) and the World Health Organization disabilities module. The letter raises some concerns about the use of the ASQoL as a standalone measure in a recent study by Caron et al. published in Autism. Lay abstract This letter to the editors discusses the use of the ASQoL for research with autistic adults. The autism quality of life measure was developed for use alongside two existing measures of quality of life developed by the World Health Organization. It was not developed as a questionnaire to be used in its own. The letter raises some concerns about the use of the autism quality of life measure as a standalone measure in a recent study by Caron et al., published in Autism.


Geriatrics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 102
Author(s):  
Margarida Goes ◽  
Manuel José Lopes ◽  
João Marôco ◽  
Henrique Oliveira ◽  
César Fonseca ◽  
...  

The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric qualities of the WHOQOL-BREF(PT) (the questionnaire developed by the World Health Organization Quality of Life Grpup for quality of life assessment), when applied to Portuguese elderly people residing in a community setting. The psychometric qualities were assessed by confirmatory factor analysis. A hierarchical second-order model and a third model were performed, and all three models presented similar and reasonable adjustment indexes. The data analysis showed that the construct failed only regarding discriminant validity because the correlations between the first-order factors were higher, associated with lower values of average variance extracted. The psychometric qualities found in the original translation/validation of the WHOQOL-BREF(PT) were compared with those found in this study; this study found higher correlations between domains but a similar level of factor reliability. The findings of this study lead to three recommendations: (i) to compute each factor score for each participant using the factor score weights obtained from confirmatory analysis models instead of adopting a unitary weight for each item, as proposed by the authors of the original translation/validation of the WHOQOL-BREF(PT); (ii) to compute a QOL score, which is not included in the original translation/validation; and (iii) to analyze differences between individual scores for each participants, which should be done by a group of health experts.


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