The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among religious coping, acceptance of diabetes, social support, diabetes management, and quality of life among individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). Religious coping, acceptance of diabetes, and social support were hypothesized to encourage adherence to self - management behaviors thus enhancing quality of life. A convenience sample of 247 T2DM patients was recruited from local churches, clinics, a diabetes support group, and a diabetes education class. Participants completed a 10-page survey comprising the following reliable and valid scales: Religious Problem Solving Scale-Short Form, Ideas About Diabetes-Revised Scale (IAD-R), the PRQ2000, the Religious Support Scale, Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities-Revised, and the Diabetes Quality of Life Measure. The mean age of the respondents was 54 years, with the majority being female (68%), Caucasian (53%), and of Protestant religious affiliation (58%). Gender and ethnic differences were found for religious coping, acceptance of diabetes, and selfmanagement behaviors. African Americans and women were more religious and used more religious coping. African Americans also felt more inhibited by diabetes and women were more likely to regularly examine their feet. Gender, general social support, and feeling less inhibited by diabetes (subscale of acceptance) were significant predictors of quality of life in the multivariate (regression) analysis (F (19, 219) = 7.777, p < .001; adjusted R2 = .351). Results of this study support past research indicating the influence of gender, social support, and feeling inhibited by diabetes on respondents' quality of life. Attention to patients' level of social support and diabetes education that teaches patients how to integrate the disease into their life may be critical to improving quality of life.

The concept of quality of life (QOL) has been addressed for decades. It was not until recent times when geographical information systems (GIS) have become available that a locale-specific approach could be enabled. Even then, analysis to date has been conducted mostly at the resolution of city or county level. The study presented describes an innovative methodology that may appraise QOL at finer resolutions, i.e. more localespecific. The new approach is called Spatial Appraisal and Valuation of Environment and Ecosystems, or SAVEE. This thesis research is a proof-of-concept study as the first account of the SAVEE methodology. It is to set the stage for future studies toward a more comprehensive framework. In this preliminary study of locale-specific QOL, the SAVEE methodology was used to illustrate the possibility of handling QOL factors in a dynamic manner. The assessment includes three major steps: 1) data preparation, 2) data conversion and normalization, and 3) combining contributions of factors being considered. In the first step, the geospatial data layer of a factor in consideration was input into GIS to plot a proximity map of the feature, e.g. parks or fire stations. In Step Two, each factor was first assigned a range of weight according to the location of a site on a proximity map in terms of the factor’s favorability-unfavorability. In the third step, weights from each factor were combined in a pair-wise manner, e.g. park and fire station proximities, or two factors at a time. The weight combining is done by deploying map algebra formula derived from the expert system algorithm EMYCIN. The computation was done iteratively until all factors were exhausted. The final results were coded as a gradient map of an integrated and locale-specific QOL index in the range of (-1, 1). In this preliminary study, the City of College Station, Texas was used as the study site. A set of factors and their respective ranges of weight were used in the study. By adjusting the incorporation of various factors and their ranges, a series of QOL maps for the city was generated. The resulting QOL maps indicate what factors and ranges may or may not have contributions toward a holistic overall picture of the QOL of a city in the locale-specific context. The SAVEE methodology proved to be successful in handling qualitative hedonic factors in a locale-specific quantitative manner through the GIS interface.

ABSTRACT Most of the countries in the world take increasing national income and improving living standard as their economic development goals. Due to the change of economic structure, the nation¡¦s average national income per year has exceeded USD.10,000, and the people are enjoying the material life brought forth from the high economic growth. However, the increasing of wealth doesn¡¦t guarantee the increasing of happiness and well-being. Therefore, the idea of ¡§Quality of Life¡¨ in the advanced country is to remind us that pursuing living standard is only a tool, pursuing quality of life is the real goal of economic development. Looking back at 50 years¡¦ change of economic structure and the quality of life in Taiwan, the result of the transformation of the economic structure shows on the high multiple increasing of income and the notable improvement of quality of life in each aspect of people¡¦s life, such as education, medical insurance etc. However, pursuing the rapid economic development also brings about the negative effects on the quality of life, causing the impact of environmental pollution and the over development of resource, city densely populated, thus the quality of public security, social order, and nature-ecology environment cannot reach the people¡¦s expectation but even worsen. There is a tendency towards slow rising of the general quality of life index, just as the American economic historian W. W. Rostow said, people begin to improve their quality of life when the economic development comes into the mature stage. As a result, when Taiwan is pursuing the high economic growth and wealth, the improvement of ¡§quality¡¨ is much more important than that of ¡§quantity¡¨. The expense for improving the quality of life today is the investment in the payoff tomorrow. To improve the quality of life, we have to understand the external effect in the change of economic structure, and to estimate and deal with the external cost properly.

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For meeting the requirements for both domestic economic development and social realistic demand, the foreign labors have been employed in Taiwan for several industries such as public civil engineering, important production business, household service, nursing service and fishery etc. in recent years. The main purpose of employing foreign labors was an expedient measure to resolve the shortage of blue-collar workers in Taiwan. However, the employing foreign worker had to obey the following four basic principles as: 1) Foreign labors should be hired to remedy domestic shortages of unskilled labor without compromising the employment rights and interests of Taiwan nationals. 2) Foreign labors are not allowed to use employment as a basis for immigration. 3) Foreign labors should not disturb the public safety. 4) Employment of foreign labors could not hinder domestic industrial upgrading and economic development. Since the domestic working environment has been deteriorated gradually, some events about the foreign labors with various characters disrupting residents occurred occasionally. In particular, the foreign labors living in centralized accommodations have brought several collective actions which have impacted on community residents¡¦ job satisfaction, quality of life, and conscious of community seriously. This study attempted to realize the residents¡¦ minds and exceptions in order to examine the residents¡¦ attitudes on foreign labors whether could affect their job satisfaction, quality of life, and conscious of community. In addition, did it have a significant correlation between them? The various attributes of residents such as gender, age, education, occupation, household income, type of accommodation and living time would lead to impact remarkable different results in job satisfaction, quality of life, conscious of community, and attitudes of foreign labors? The results could provide useful information for relevant authorities, thereby beneficial to look after both sides when carried out the policy of employing foreign labor and considered on the residents¡¦ experience.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-223). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 180 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-81).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-136). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2001. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-223). Also available on the Internet.

Includes bibliographical references.