scholarly journals AGE DIFFERENCES IN PSYCHOSOCIAL AND HEALTH OUTCOMES AMONG ADULTS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S978-S978
Author(s):  
Carolyn L Turturro ◽  
Rosalie Otters ◽  
Zeferin Turturro

Abstract Homelessness is a critical social problem for this nation. It takes a tremendous toll on individuals and families who live without stable shelter, adequate food, and personal security, as well as strains the societal resources. The mean age of death for people experiencing homelessness has been reported to be age 50, far less than the 76 years that is the average for Arkansas. This study investigates the sociodemographic, behavioral and health-related data of 331 adults experiencing homelessness in Central Arkansas. Data was collected by structured interviews during recent homeless counts. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 70, with quartiles established for ages 18-35, 36-45, 46-55 and 56 –70. Sociodemographic comparisons of the groups included education, income, months homeless, work and veteran status, behavioral variables included alcohol use and drug abuse, whereas health-related comparisons included reported diabetes, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, problems with hearing, vision, walking as well as mental health including anxiety and depression; in addition, medication procurement and available assistance from family and friends were compared. Preliminary results suggest significant differences, as well as some similarities, among the four age quartiles. Analyses are on-going.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Jennifer K. Peterson ◽  
Ellen F. Olshansky ◽  
Yuqing Guo ◽  
Lorraine S. Evangelista ◽  
Nancy A. Pike

Abstract Background: Survivors of single ventricle heart disease must cope with the physical, neurodevelopmental, and psychosocial sequelae of their cardiac disease, which may also affect academic achievement and social relationships. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine the experiences of school and social relationships in adolescents with single ventricle heart disease. Methods: A descriptive phenomenological methodology was employed, utilising semi-structured interviews. Demographic and clinical characteristics were obtained via chart review. Results: Fourteen adolescents (aged 14 to 19 years) with single ventricle heart disease participated. Interviews ranged from 25 to 80 minutes in duration. Four themes emerged from the interviews, including “Don’t assume”: Pervasive ableism; “The elephant in the room”: Uncertain future; “Everyone finds something to pick on”: Bullying at school; “They know what I have been through”: Social support. The overall essence generated from the data was “optimism despite profound uncertainty.” Conclusions: Adolescents with single ventricle heart disease identified physical limitations and school challenges in the face of an uncertain health-related future. Despite physical and psychosocial limitations, most remained optimistic for the future and found activities that were congruent with their abilities. These experiences reflect “optimism despite profound uncertainty.”


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 205630512094069
Author(s):  
Rachael Kent

Instagram and self-tracking technologies enable multiple ways to perform and represent the body and health. No research has yet explored how self-tracking technologies and self-representations of health identity on social media, in particular Instagram, influence health “sharing” online and individual health management offline. To enable a thorough investigation of how self-tracking mediations of identity construction work in practice, through a textual and thematic analysis of empirical ethnographic data from online content, reflexive diaries and semi-structured interviews with 14 participants, this research examines the use of these converged technologies to share health-related data on Instagram in the performance of optimal health identities. Participants identified pressures that arose from this continual performative identity of being a healthy role model under persistent self- and community surveillance, which also led to the development of powerful compulsions to use these technologies to document and share many aspects of health and lifestyle. Over time, the participants attempted to disengage and detox either temporarily or permanently from Instagram, to enable a protective shield from the pervasive, normalized surveillance and community practices. Most interestingly, even when they removed these technologies and platforms from their daily lives, participants still felt neglectful to their devices, to themselves, and to their communities online in their abstinence and resistance to perform optimal health practices.


2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
QiFeng Wang ◽  
Margaret Hay ◽  
David Clarke ◽  
Samuel Menahem

AbstractIntroductionAdvances in overall management have led to an increasing number of adolescents with congenital heart disease reaching adulthood. This study aimed to evaluate the health-related quality of life in adolescents with heart disease, and examine its relationship with the adolescents’ knowledge and understanding of their congenital heart disease, its severity, and its relationship to the degree of anxiety and depression, feeling of optimism and sense of coherence experienced by the adolescents together with their social support.Methods and resultsAdolescents with heart disease were recruited from an ambulatory setting at a tertiary centre. Patients completed self-report questionnaires including the Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory 3.0-Cardiac Module, a questionnaire assessing the adolescents’ knowledge of their cardiac condition, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Life Orientation Test-Revised, and Sense of Coherence-13, supplemented by clinical information provided by the attending cardiologists. A total of 114 patients aged 12–20 years were recruited over 15 months. In all, 98% of patients were in New York Heart Association class I. Their health-related quality of life was found to positively correlate with a low level of anxiety and depression (Pearson correlation, r = −0.57, p < 0.001), a good knowledge of their cardiac condition (r = 0.31, p < 0.01), feelings of optimism (r = 0.39, p < 0.001), adequate social support (r = 0.27, p < 0.01), and a strong sense of coherence (r = 0.24, p < 0.01).ConclusionsAdolescents’ knowledge and understanding of their cardiac abnormality together with an improved sense of well-being had a positive influence on their health-related quality of life.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lílian Maria Pacola ◽  
Eliane Nepomuceno ◽  
Rosana Aparecida Spadoti Dantas ◽  
Herton Rodrigo Tavares Costa ◽  
Débora Cristine Previdé Teixeira da Cunha ◽  
...  

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the expectations of patients awaiting surgical treatment of lumbar canal stenosis and the association of Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) with symptoms of anxiety and depression. METHODS: The sample included 49 patients from a university hospital. HRQoL was assessed by the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and 36-item Medical Outcomes Survey Short Form (SF-36) and symptoms of anxiety and depression by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Expectations were investigated by means of questions used in international studies. Data were analyzed descriptively and by Student's t test. RESULTS: The mean time of disease progression was 34.5 months, the mean age was 58.8 years and 55.1% of the patients were women. Most patients had the expectation of improving with surgical treatment and 46.9% expected to be "much better" with regard to leg pain, walking ability, independence in activities and mental well being. The scores of anxiety and depression were respectively, 34.7% and 12.2%. We observed statistically significant differences between the groups with and without anxiety in the domains: General Health, Mental Health, and Vitality. Between the groups with and without depression there were statistically significant differences in the General Health and Mental Health domains. CONCLUSION: Patients showed great expectation to surgical treatment and the symptoms of anxiety and depression were related to some domains of HRQoL. Thus, the study contributes to broaden our knowledge and we can therefore guide the patients as to their expectations with respect to the real possibilities arising from surgery.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Meena Jain ◽  
Saloni Chandalia

This research paper deals with the Family Environment and its Correlation with Anxiety and Depression level among persons with Heart Disease. There had been a number of researches that investigated that ischemic heart disease patients who suffer significant anxiety have close to a 5-fold increased risk of experiencing frequent angina and those with depression have more than a 3-fold increased risk for these episodes. This observed link between psychiatric symptoms and angina underlines the importance of treating anxiety and depression in cardiac patients, according to study co author Dr Mark D Sullivan (University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle). To gather the needed data, Hamilton Anxiety Scale and Becks Depression Inventory were used. As stated from literatures, for people with heart dysfunction, depression and anxiety can increase the risk of an adverse cardiac event such as a heart attack or blood clots. For people who do not have heart disease, depression and anxiety can also increase the risk of a heart attack and development of coronary artery disease. Researchers have also emphasized on the role of family psychosocial environment and its positive association with the Coronary Heart Disease risk.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Hammond ◽  
Vivian L. West ◽  
David Borland ◽  
Igor Akushevich ◽  
Eugenia M. Heinz

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 030006052092040
Author(s):  
Yao Lu ◽  
Teng Ma ◽  
Cheng Ren ◽  
Zhong Li ◽  
Liang Sun ◽  
...  

Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of bone transport involving circular external fixation and locking plate application for the treatment of segmental tibial defects. Methods A retrospective review of 12 patients with segmental tibial defects who underwent bone transport with circular external fixation and locking plate application. We evaluated external fixation time, external fixation index, time to achieve union, and complications. Clinical results were assessed using the Association for the Study and Application of the Methods of Ilizarov (ASAMI) score. Generic health-related outcome was assessed using the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey questionnaire (SF-36). Results The mean follow-up was 25.8 months, and the mean defect size was 6.7 cm. All of the patients achieved union at the distraction callus and docking site. The average external fixation time was 299.5 days. The mean external fixation index was 16.5 days/cm, and the mean healing index was 44.9 days/cm. The functional outcomes were excellent in eight cases and good in four. The average SF-36 score was 92. Conclusion Bone transport with external fixation and locking plate application may be a promising method for the treatment of segmental tibial defects.


Lupus ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 096120332110050
Author(s):  
Rory C Monahan ◽  
Liesbeth JJ Beaart-van de Voorde ◽  
Jeroen Eikenboom ◽  
Rolf Fronczek ◽  
Margreet Kloppenburg ◽  
...  

Introduction We aimed to investigate risk factors for fatigue in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and neuropsychiatric symptoms in order to identify potential interventional strategies. Methods Patients visiting the neuropsychiatric SLE (NPSLE) clinic of the Leiden University Medical Center between 2007–2019 were included. In a multidisciplinary consensus meeting, SLE patients were classified as having neuropsychiatric symptoms of inflammatory origin (inflammatory phenotype) or other origin (non-inflammatory phenotype). Fatigue was assessed with the SF-36 vitality domain (VT) since 2007 and the multidimensional fatigue inventory (MFI) and visual analogue scale (VAS) since 2011. Patients with a score on the SF-36 VT ≥1 standard deviation (SD) away from the mean of age-related controls of the general population were classified as fatigued; patients ≥2 SD away were classified as extremely fatigued. Disease activity was measured using the SLE disease activity index-2000. The influence of the presence of an inflammatory phenotype, disease activity and symptoms of depression and anxiety as measured by the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) was analyzed using multiple regression analyses corrected for age, sex and education. Results 348 out of 371 eligible patients filled in questionnaires and were included in this study . The majority was female (87%) and the mean age was 43 ± 14 years. 72 patients (21%) had neuropsychiatric symptoms of an inflammatory origin. Fatigue was present in 78% of all patients and extreme fatigue was present in 50% of patients with an inflammatory phenotype vs 46% in the non-inflammatory phenotype. Fatigue was similar in patients with an inflammatory phenotype compared to patients with a non-inflammatory phenotype on the SF-36 VT (β: 0.8 (95% CI −4.8; 6.1) and there was less fatigue in patients with an inflammatory phenotype on the MFI and VAS (β: −3.7 (95% CI: −6.9; −0.5) and β: −1.0 (95% CI −1.6; −0.3)). There was no association between disease activity and fatigue, but symptoms of anxiety and depression (HADS) associated strongly with all fatigue measurements. Conclusion This study suggests that intervention strategies to target fatigue in (NP)SLE patients may need to focus on symptoms of anxiety and depression rather than immunosuppressive treatment.


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