Facing the ageing society, this study aimed to understand the needs of middle-aged and elderly people in participating social service work and to further investigate their attitudes, willingness and reasons for participation. The subjects were 585 middle-aged and elderly citizens enrolled in the elderly schools located in the Kaohsiung area. The survey lasted from November 2009 to March, 2010. The subjects were asked to respond to the Attitudes towards Social Service Participation Scale (the ASSPS) which consists of five subscales: the Autonomy in Social Service Participation, the Altruism in Social Service Participation, the Meaningfulness in Social Service Participation, the Motivation in Social service Participation, and the Accomplishments in Social Service Participation. The Cronbach £\ reliability of ASSPS was .95 and the reliabilities of its subscales ranged between .80 and .93. The results showed that the mean score of male subjects was higher than that of females in the ASSP, the Meaningfulness in Social Service Participation Subscale, and the Motivation in Social Service Participation Subscale. In view of willingness in social service participation, subjects with a college or above degree exhibited higher willingness than those subjects of elementary education level or under. Besides, participants retired from farming, labor, business, military, public service, and education sectors expressed higher willingness than those doing housekeeping jobs. The results of this study provided references for utilizing middle-aged and elderly labor force and planning social service programs.

This study is intended to explore how physicians can best help their older patients attain a better quality of life through sexual healthcare by eliciting older patients perceptions and experiences regarding their sexual health needs and what role their physician should play in meeting those needs. Participants consisted of individuals and couples over the age of 65 recruited from a continuing care retirement community and from a VA Geriatric Clinic. Twenty in-depth, one-on-one interviews were conducted, and transcripts were analyzed using qualitative methodology. Analysis of transcripts revealed a broad range of findings including seniors perceptions of: the definitions of sexual activity and sexual health, their own sexual status, their own sexual health needs, the barriers to meeting their sexual health needs, and the ageist beliefs of others and themselves. This study exposed older patients self-perceived sexual health needs and the barriers to having those needs met; this knowledge should help physicians improve the quality of life for their senior patients through improved sexual health care.

Dissertation (Ph.D.).--University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at San Antonio, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri--Columbia, 2003. / "December 2003." Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-165). Also issued on the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Oregon State University, 2003. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 183-192). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--University of Hong Kong, 1986.

Set within the context that the world’s population is ageing at an unprecedented rate, it is argued that care of the elderly, and their everyday lived experiences are poised to become prominent concerns. In the shadow of this, the ageing population poses a myriad of challenges not only for the elderly but also for policy makers who put in place systems for the provision of services within residential care homes. By virtue, given that communities of elderly consumers voices are often muted within many academic analyses of social policy and service provision this study illuminates and distils communities of elderly consumers understandings of residential care homes. Given the absence of suitable literature within the fields of marketing and interpretive consumer research, this study turns to the sociological and anthropological literature of Hall and Jefferson (1976) and Levi-Strauss (1966). In doing so, communities of elderly consumers within residential care homes can be theorised as a cultural community of ‘bricoleurs’ within a ‘cultural map of meaning’. Furthermore, viewed through this lens, such bricoleurs can be seen to understand their meaningful everyday lived experiences within, and through, the use of ‘bricolage’. Emanating from eight existential-phenomenological interviews, a rich picture emerges wherein bricoleurs understandings of residential care homes can be seen to be embedded not only within, but also through, such things as the body, leisure trips, noise disturbances, death, large items of furniture, small hand-sized objects, mobility aids, quality of care and social interaction. Moreover, in the light of the resultant interpretations common themes can be seen to emerge within communities of bricoleurs social and material understandings of residential care homes, namely the notion of cultures of dependency, trauma and comfort. This research contributes to marketing knowledge in that it argues that communities of ‘elderly bricoleurs’ within residential care homes can be seen to be held together by unique understandings of cultures of dependency, trauma and comfort. Furthermore, it is also argued that elderly bricoleurs address themselves to a relatively limited amount of bricolage that enables them to keep alive actual, desired, imagined and fictional community ties. Furthermore, the reality and efficacy of cultural communities of elderly bricoleurs seems to depend on their ability to address ‘whatever is to hand’ (Levi-Strauss, 1966) in order to construct and understand their cultural maps of meaning within residential care homes.

Section A explores the theoretical underpinnings of the four concepts included within the umbrella term ‘falls-related psychological concerns.’ These are fear of falling, falls-related self-efficacy (FSe), balance confidence and outcome expectancy. It goes on to examine the empirical literature on psychological factors associated with falls-related psychological concerns, and the limited literature exploring how the psychological factors mediate between falls-related psychological concerns and falls. A model of falls-risk is presented to consider these mediating roles. The clinical and research implications of the review findings are considered. Section B reports an empirical study, which explored cognitive coping responses employed by community-dwelling older people to manage their falls-related psychological concerns. It explored if these coping responses mediate the relationship between falls-related psychological concerns and falls. Correlation and regression analyses were employed to explore the relationships between these variables. Robust analysis was conducted using bootstrapping, and a bootstrapped mediation analysis, based on Baron and Kenny’s (1986) model was employed. The study concluded that FSe and falls were strongly associated, and ‘self-controlling’ coping was found to be a partial mediator of this relationship. Study limitations, theoretical and clinical implications, and suggestions for further research are provided.

A staged causal model was used to examine the nature of the family relationships between two groups of frail elderly subjects who resided at home and were cared for by a related caregiver. The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of (1) the subject's and caregiver's characteristics; (2) the elderly person's perceptions of the relationship; (3) the elderly person's role perception; and (4) the elderly person's expectations and perceptions of the caregiver on the nature of the caring situation and on the subject's affective tone. One group in this study was composed of individuals whose relationships with their caregivers were judged to be "Good" (N = 44) and the other group was composed of individuals whose relationships with their caregivers were judged to be "Abusive and/or Neglectful" (N = 30) by a referring public health nurse. Using elements of intrafamily violence theory and the child abuse literature, the variables that were predicted to impact on abuse and/or neglect and on neglative mood states were identified in a theoretical model. The sample was selected from individuals who were defined as frail elderly by virtue of physical or psychological disabilities. In addition, each subject met other criteria including: was over sixty years of age, was Anglo-American, was not confused, and was English speaking. A blind interview technique was used and each subject was interviewed in his home setting. Data were analyzed in several phases. First, descriptive data were analyzed to determine the characteristics of the two groups of subjects and to determine the similarities between the two groups. The descriptive analysis included consideration of the subjects, their caregivers, the relationships between the two, and the refusers in the study. Second, the reliability and validity of the tools were tested. Third, the casual hypotheses were tested using regression analysis testing full and reduced models for both groups. The dependent variables included anger, tension, depression, and abuse. An empirical model was generated and tested as well. Last, a comparison between the groups using difference of the means tests were completed for the major variables. The results of this study demonstrated that there were significant differences between the two groups in the causal models, the amount of explained variance, and three major variables: social supports, expectations of the caregivers, and perceptions of the caregivers. A number of descriptive variables were statistically significant as well. Among the most important study outcomes were the identification of issues involved in the study of abuse and/or neglect among the elderly, the identification of issues involved in the study of older individuals, the identification of potential areas for future study, and the identification of the implications of this type of study for nursing and for health care of older people in general.

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