Risk factors for depression in older adults include significant interpersonal losses, increasing social isolation, and deteriorating physical abilities and health that require healthcare. The effects ...of unmet healthcare needs on depression in older adults are understudied. This study aimed to analyze the association between unmet healthcare needs and symptoms of depression, sleep, and antidepressant medication while controlling for other significant factors among older adults. For this study, we used a multinational database from The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), containing data of individuals aged 50 and older. The final sample used in this research consisted of 39,484 individuals from 50 to 100 years (mean − 71.15, SD ± 9.19), 42.0 percent of whom were male. Three path models exploring relationships between symptoms of depression at an older age and unmet healthcare needs were produced and had a good model fit. We found that unmet healthcare needs were directly related to depression, activity limitations were related to depression directly and through unmet healthcare needs, whereas financial situation mostly indirectly through unmet healthcare needs. We discuss how depression itself could increase unmet healthcare needs.
Willingness to get a vaccine was important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous studies suggest that vaccine hesitation during the pandemic could have been related to truth discernment, belief in ...information, exposure to misinformation, attitudes to vaccines, and conspiracy beliefs. Previous studies were mostly with younger adults, and studies with older adults are lacking. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between the trust or belief in fake online news (print news was not included), truth discernment, attitudes, and willingness to be vaccinated during the COVID-19 pandemic while controlling for some significant factors/variables that could affect vaccination in a sample of older adults. There were 504 pre-retirees and retirees participating in this study. Participants from Lithuania age ranged from 50 to 90 years old (M = 64.37, SD = 9.10), 58.3 percent were females. Results from several path models predicting the participants willingness to get a vaccine suggested that stronger conspiracy beliefs and skeptical attitudes toward vaccination would be related to lower willingness to get vaccinated. Participants who disbelieved in the headlines were already vaccinated. Therefore, it seems that discernment (the ability to distinguish which information is true and which is not) is not related to the willingness to vaccinate.
The article concentrates on the delineation between children’s participation and children’s influence in a family purchasing process. Lack of clarity between the two concepts results in ...misconceptions, inconsistencies, or even conflicting findings across studies. This study addresses the issue from theoretical and methodological perspectives. Taking into account the importance of children’s participation as a necessary, but not sufficient, pre-condition to demonstrate the influence, the study delineates the two variables and specifies the differences between them. This is supported with the development and validation of an alternative scale that directly measures children’s influence. Further analysis allows justification of the new scale and shows a theoretically supported difference between the measurements of children’s participation and influence in family-buying decision. The fact of making clear distinction between participation and influence leads to the enriched theoretical and methodological knowledge in the field and provides important managerial implications both in the family purchasing context and in other types of group interactions.
Depression is most common among the elderly and is associated with major impairment. With limited accessible treatments available, remotely provided interventions are needed. Internet-based ...interventions have been proven effective for a number of mental and somatic health problems. However, the elderly population has received relatively limited attention in previous studies. This study aims to address this gap by investigating the effectiveness of a tailored Internet-delivered modular intervention based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
A minimum of 60 participants will be recruited and randomly assigned to groups in a two-armed parallel controlled trial with a waiting list. The intervention group will have access to an 8-week therapist-supported modular intervention. The waiting list group will be instructed to wait for 8 weeks and then granted access to the intervention for 8 weeks. Pre, post, and 3-, 12-, and 24-month follow-up assessments are planned for measuring changes in depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and psychological well-being using PHQ-9, GDS, GAD-7, and WHO-5. Primary outcomes of all the participants will be analyzed using the intention-to-treat principle, and within- and between-group effect sizes will be calculated.
Internet-based interventions could help address the existing treatment gap for depressed older adults. However, to date, the effectiveness of Internet-based CBT (ICBT) for depressed older adults has only been tested in a few studies. This trial will demonstrate if Internet-based CBT is effective for this population when compared to a waiting list control. Further analysis of secondary outcomes and participant behavior in the intervention will potentially reveal effectiveness moderating factors.
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04728204. Registered on 15 January 2021. https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04728204?term=NCT04728204&draw=2&rank=1.
The tremendous growth of internet use during past few decades has been primarily led by young people. Despite a plenitude of studies reporting the pros and cons of excessive internet use by ...adolescents, the internet use of primary school-aged children is under-researched. First, there is lack of reliable and valid cultural invariant self-report instruments for children younger than 11-years-old. Secondly, there is no consensus on whether primary school-aged children can reliably report on their internet use. This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS) as reported by primary school-aged children in three different countries/regions.
Paper-pencil format CIUS questionnaires were completed by a total of 691 children aged 8 to 10 years old, 236 of them Latvian, 207 Lithuanian, and 248 Taiwanese, as well as by one of their parents, at two-time points, separated by a one-year interval. The parents also reported on the child's emotional and behavioral difficulties.
Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that for the child self-report, a 10-item CIUS showed the best fit and good psychometric properties: solid structural validity; very good internal consistency; appropriate stability and predictive validity after 1 year; as well as sound sensitivity and specificity when compared to the 14-item CIUS parent-report form. Child self-report CIUS ratings correlated with time online reported by the child and parent and with emotional and behavioral problems reported by the parent.
This study indicates that children as young as 8-10 years old can reliably and consistently provide valuable information on their problematic use of the internet.
An extended theory of planned behaviour was used to explain children's self-reported recycling behaviour with an inclusion of parental behaviour and two background factors of child gender and social ...desirability. Ninety-nine pupils aged 8-11 years and one parent of each participated in the study. Children took part in structured one-on-one interviews, where they responded to questions about their recycling behaviour, willingness (desire) to recycle, environmental attitudes, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. Parents provided their answers on the compatible behavioural items. In addition, children responded to questions from the short version of the Children's Social Desirability scale. For the analysis, three models were tested step by step. In the final model, where background factors were introduced, parental behaviour remained the only predictor of child behaviour, while pupils' willingness to recycle remained to be determined by the perceived behavioural control only. Conclusions and implications regarding study findings are provided in the paper.
This study explored the profiles of elementary-school-aged children's Internet use in relation to their emotional and behavioral problems. Participating in this cross-sectional study were 877 ...child-parent dyads from Latvia, Lithuania, and Taiwan. Children (8-10 years old) provided information on three variables: the amount of time they spent online, frequency of online activities, and knowledge of how to do things online. Latent profile analysis including these three variables provided a four-class solution for child Internet use. A comparison between Latvia, Lithuania, and Taiwan on the percentage of the sample distribution in each class showed that there was no difference between sites for the high class (high ratings on all three variables). The largest differences were for the low and average classes (low and average ratings on all three variables, namely, time online, frequency, and knowledge): the Lithuanian and Taiwanese samples were similar in that a higher percentage of each sample was in the low class, whereas the Latvian sample had children equally distributed between the low class and the average class. Analysis of the data from the entire sample for differences in parent-reported child behavioral difficulties suggested that children in the high class had an elevated level of behavioral problems and compulsive Internet use.
The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life, but analytical and systematic investigation of school-aged children’s online activities is lacking. This study aims to describe children’s ...Internet use according to types of online activities and examine the personal and family sociodemographic correlates of types of online activities within different sociocultural contexts. Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 840 children aged 8–10 years and their parents in Latvia, Lithuania and Taiwan. Children reported the frequency of using the Internet for ten specific activities, which were classified into the three distinct types of online activities, namely, information seeking, social interactions and entertainment, through multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Overall, school-aged children used the Internet most frequently for entertainment and least frequently for social interactions, and Latvian children engaged the most frequently in all types of online activities. The multiple linear regression results show that in all three countries, children’s device ownership and use of the Internet to cope with negative emotions were the two most salient correlates of engagement in different online activities. Although family socioeconomic (e.g., parent’s education, financial status) differences in Internet usage types were not evident, there were country variations in the association of online activity types with family demographic factors (e.g., living arrangement, child’s number of siblings). This study identifies personal and family sociodemographic correlates of the types of activities children perform online and highlights differences in the comparison countries.
In this paper, using data obtained from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), previously experienced unemployment links to the subjective well-being of older adults in the ...Baltic States are analyzed.
One of the global challenges faced by a considerable number of countries is the aging of society. Subjective well-being of older adults and its factors are becoming one of the fundamental issues of the research as older adults are becoming a bigger part of society, and it becomes critical to understand what makes their lives wholesome. According to the life course perspective, human development is a lifelong process, and various events, personal life experiences may shape people and their lives. Therefore, it can be assumed that such a significant event as previously experienced unemployment may be related to the subjective well-being at older ages. Thus, this study aims to analyze the links between previously experienced unemployment and the subjective well-being of life of older adults in the Baltic States.
Data obtained from the 7th wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) was used for the analysis (Bergmann et al., 2019; Börsch-Supan, 2020). Two thousand eight hundred five responses of Estonians, 941 of Lithuanians, and 809 of Latvians over the age of 50 were analyzed. The subjective well-being, previously experienced unemployment, socio-demographic, personality, and health factors were analyzed.
Research results show that many factors predict the subjective well-being of older adults in the three Baltic States: sociodemographic data can explain around 11% of the variance of the subjective well-being. Income additionally explains 2%, factors related to a person’s health adds 11% to the explanation, personality traits – also 11%, previously experienced unemployment – less than 1%. In the model containing all the factors, the most important predictor was personality trait neuroticism, and the model explained 35% of the variance of the subjective well-being. The subjective well-being was not linked only to gender and living with a partner. By analyzing the links between previously experienced unemployment and subjective well-being, we found that these links are relatively weak, although they remain even when controlling a range of factors of subjective well-being.
Do children overestimate their engagement in parental purchase decisions? A systematic analysis of the articles enabled us to create a database of 149 cases where child and parent perceptions of ...children's engagement in parental purchase decisions were measured. The findings proved that there is congruence between children's and parents' perception of a child's engagement in most cases. Children's overestimation of their engagement in a parental decision to purchase products is likely the exception rather than the rule. The cases characterized as overestimations are related to product category and type of measured domain. (Children tend to overestimate their engagement more when the measures track participation or influence rather than decision independence.)