Yes / Late life involves a variety of different challenges to well-being. This study extends and qualifies propositions drawn from the paradox of well-being in aging using 15-year longitudinal data on depressive symptoms from old and very old participants in the Australian Longitudinal Study of Ageing (Baseline N 2,087; Mage 78.69 years; range: 65–103 years; 49.40% women). We first examined age-related trajectories in depressive symptoms from young-old to oldest-old, taking into account (changes in) relevant correlates, pathology, and mortality; and, second, we investigated gender differences in these trajectories. Results revealed that age-related trajectories of depressive symptoms were predictive of mortality hazards. The unique predictive effects of both level of, and change in, depressive symptoms were independent of one another and held after taking into account education as well as changes in marital status, living arrangements, cognitive function, and illness burden. In addition, results indicated that depressive symptoms were elevated among participants suffering from arthritis, and increased with age more markedly in men than in women. In particular, the significant Age Gender interaction indicated that the gender gap in depressive symptoms reduced from young-old to old-old and reversed in very old age when men showed more depressive symptoms than women. Qualifying the paradox of well-being in aging, findings demonstrated that depressive symptoms increased from young-old to oldest-old and suggest that age-, pathology-, and mortality-related changes should be examined in concert to advance our understanding of individual differences in depressive symptom trajectories in late life.

Alarming rates of suicide among production farmers have prompted researchers to investigate factors associated with depressive symptoms among this population. Aspects of farm life and farming can contribute to higher levels of depressive symptoms. Higher levels of depression can also increase an individual’s risk of injury and development of chronic disease, impacting overall quality of life. Despite the approximate 3.5 million farm women in the U.S., current research has focused on the male farmer. Men and women have different responses to stressors, and women in general have a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms. Farm women can be further subjected to stressors associated with farming as an occupation and their gendered role within the agrarian culture. The large number of farm women affected, the relationship of chronic depressive symptoms on health and quality of life, the lack of current research available, and the rising rates of suicide and depressive symptoms among farmers emphasize the need for further investigation of farm women and depressive symptoms. The overall purpose of this dissertation was to 1) explore the current state of the science of farm women and depressive symptoms and identify variables commonly associated with depressive symptoms among farm women, 2) identify variables influencing levels of depressive symptoms within farm women aged 50 and over and identify differences between those women with high depressive symptoms and those with low depressive symptoms, and 3) establish the reliability and validity of the 12-item John Henry Active Coping Scale (JHAC-12) within the sample. A systematic review of the literature revealed that there is a need for more research with strong study designs regarding farm women and depressive symptoms within the context of their environment, culture, and occupation. The review identified multidimensional factors from farm women’s lives that influence their level of depressive symptoms. Farm women’s ethnicity, the agrarian culture, family and social relations, as well as specific demographics were identified as key variables associated with an increased risk of higher depressive symptoms. Because of the identification of the multi-dimensional factors, the use of the Modified Biopsychosocial Model (MBPS) was selected as a framework for continued research as it depicts the interrelationship between the factors and their influence on farm women’s depressive symptoms. The MBPS was applied to data from 358 farm women aged 50 and older from a larger cohort study, and a secondary analysis was performed. Multivariable binary logistic regression was used to identify those variables associated with depressive symptoms among farm women. Depressive symptoms were predicted by race/ethnicity, years of education, adequacy of income for vacation, perceived health status, perceived stress score, and active coping score. Significant differences between those farm women with low CES-D score (< 16) and those with high CES-D score (≥ 16) were noted. Race/ethnicity, years of education, adequate income for vacation and retirement, reported health status of fair or better, perceived stress score, active coping score and satisfaction from farm work were all significant between groups. Women who were non-White, had less education, reported income not adequate for vacation or retirement, reported poor health, higher levels of perceived stress, lower levels of active coping and who were not satisfied with farm work were more likely to be in the high CES-D group. A principal component analysis with direct oblimin rotation in a sample population of older farm women (n=458) identified two dominant themes of the JHAC-12: “commitment to hard work” and “self-efficacy.” The instrument component structure reflects the culture of the agrarian society. In the two-component solution, 2 items were removed from the scale after revealing low values of communality (< .3). The item reduction resulted in more refined scale, increasing explained variance by 4.1% with less items. Cronbach’s of the JHAC-12 (α = .78) and JHAC-10 (α = .76) indicated high levels of reliability for both scales. Rotation of the items resulted in a simple structure with high loadings within items, no major-cross-loadings and little correlation between components (r = .29), supporting both convergent and discriminant validity in this population. The ability of the JHAC to encompass the socio-culture aspects of active coping among farm women and obtain a quantifiable result supports the JHAC as an important tool to utilize in future studies of depressive symptoms and farm women with use of the JHAC-10 in future studies of farm women decreasing the burden of the participants. Although there are limitations within each document, each section adds to the science of farm women and depression symptoms and provides directions for future research. The major gaps identified were: 1) the need for current research with stronger study designs, 2) studies of farm women across their life spans, 3) the need for focused studies among minority and migrant women, 4) an understanding of farm women and their leisure time, and 5) a broader application of the MBPS theory to include a large number of social variables shown to be associated with farm women and depressive symptoms that were not available in the dataset.

No description available.

Mindfulness-based interventions reduce depressive symptoms and rumination, and enhance mindfulness in adults; this non-randomised controlled feasibility study aimed to determine whether these conclusions apply to young people, and whether mindfulness and rumination mediate the effect on depressive symptoms. Participants aged 12-16 received a nine-week universal mindfulness intervention in schools delivered by trained teachers (intervention group, N = 256) or their regular school curriculum (control group, N = 266). Intervention schools were matched to control schools on key variables (publicly-funded versus private, mainstream versus special needs). Young people who received the intervention reported fewer depressive symptoms post-intervention relative to controls, which was maintained at three-month follow-up. Mindfulness and rumination were unchanged immediately after the intervention, however by follow-up, intervention participants were significantly more mindful and less likely to ruminate than controls. The extent to which young people practiced mindfulness was negatively correlated with depressive symptoms at post-intervention and follow-up, positively correlated with mindfulness at post-intervention and follow-up, and positively correlated with rumination at follow-up. This universal mindfulness intervention shows promise for reducing depressive symptoms, reducing rumination and increasing mindfulness in young people, however further research is warranted, particularly regarding the mechanisms of change.

No description available.

Thesis (MA (Psychology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Within the medical models, postpartum depression is constructed as a mental illness, that women are predisposed to during the postpartum period because of the biological and physiological changes that occur before, during and after childbirth. The present study aimed to determine whether childbirth increases the risk of developing depressive symptomatology in the first six months after delivery. The objective of the study was to examine the concept of postpartum depression by analyzing the difference in depressive symptom rates between 41 postpartum women and 254 male and female (who had not given birth in the previous six months) community members residing in a semi-rural area of South Africa. This objective was reached by using a cross-sectional survey research design. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was used to elicit the quantitative data. Several independent t-tests were conducted to determine the following (i) whether low-income women three months postpartum had higher BDI scores in comparison to a combined gendered community sample, and (ii) whether low-income women six months postpartum had higher BDI scores in comparison to a combined gendered community sample. The results indicated that the postpartum women did not experience elevated rates of depressive symptoms at three months or at six months in comparison to the community sample. Men in the 2003 community sample displayed significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms than the sixmonth postpartum women. These findings do not support the assumption that childbirth predisposes women to psychological vulnerability during the postpartum period.

Background: The Patient Health Questionnaire PHQ-9 is a widely used instrument to screen for depression in clinical research. The first aim of this study was to psychometrically test the PHQ-9 in a large sample of cancer patients. The second aim was to calculate unbiased estimates of the depression burden for several cancer groups taking into account age and gender distributions. Methods: A sample of 2,059 cancer patients with varying diagnoses were examined in this study six months after discharge from a rehabilitation clinic. A representative sample of 2,693 people from the general population served as controls. Expected PHQ-9 mean scores of the general population sample, regressed on age and gender, were calculated to enable a fair comparison of different groups of cancer patients. Results: While the reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) for the PHQ-9 scale was good (alpha ≥ 0.84), the CFA fit indices of the one-dimensional solution were unsatisfactory in the patients’ sample. The factorial analysis confirmed two factors. PHQ-9 mean scores for 15 types of cancer are given, ranging from 4.0 (prostate) to 8.2 (thyroid gland). Differences between expected mean scores (derived from the general population) and raw mean scores of the cancer subsamples are reported that provide a better estimate of the depression burden. Conclusions: The results confirmed that the PHQ-9 performs well in testing depression in cancer patients. Regression coefficients can be used for performing unbiased comparisons among cancer groups, not only for this study. The burden of patients with testis cancer and Hodgkin lymphoma is underestimated when age and gender are not taken into account.

Among several difficulties associated with immigration, acculturation process has been recognized as one of the main stressors and one of the major risk factors associated in the incidence of mental disorders. The strategies adopted by individuals to deal with the acculturation process appear to be predictive of different mental health outcomes. This exploratory study investigated the relationship between acculturation strategies and the occurrence of symptoms of depression in the context of the Brazilian immigrant community living in the Greater Toronto Area. The results demonstrated that Separation and Assimilation were the predominant strategies for this sample and that acculturation strategies failed to serve as significant predictors of depression scores. However, participants with Separation as their predominant acculturation strategy exhibited higher depressive symptom endorsement. The significance of these findings in the context of previous research as well as its implications for future research and critical multicultural practice in mental health are discussed.

Chronic illness affects nearly half of all American adults, yet this experience is often regarded as socially normative for older adults. In this study, I examined chronic illness onset early in the life course and its effects on mastery, a person’s self-perception as capable of coping with and managing life’s circumstances, and depressive symptoms as informed by the life course perspective and the stress process model. Using multilevel modeling of American Changing Lives Survey (ACLS) data, I examined the following questions: What is the relationship between early onset chronic illness and mastery? Second, what is the relationship between early onset chronic illness and depressive symptoms? Does mastery mediate the relationship between early onset chronic illness and depressive symptoms? Is early onset chronic illness (24-35) more strongly associated with decreased mastery and increased depressive symptoms than illness onset at the more socially normative life stages of mid-life (36-64) and late-life (65 years and older)? Lastly, does mastery mediate or moderate the relationship between timing of illness onset and depressive symptoms? Through this study, I aim to contribute to sociological knowledge of whether and how chronic illness impacts mastery and depression among young adults. I argue that ill-timed chronic illness impacts young adults’ sense of control over their lives, which has enduring psychological and social consequences. Findings support that healthy and chronically ill young adults do not significantly differ on mastery, but ill young adults report significantly higher depressive symptoms than healthy same age peers. Mastery moderates the effects of timing of illness onset on depressive symptoms with older adults reaping greater benefit from mastery against depressive symptoms than young adults with early onset illness. These findings suggest that early onset chronic illness positions people at greater risk for poor mental health outcomes and that the chronic illness experience and its effects are not uniform across the life course. Consequently, work in this area must consider age as an important context in which the life event of chronic illness onset occurs.

The purpose of the study is to examine young children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors in the context of post paternal incarceration by focusing on both risks (i.e., parental depressive symptoms), protective factors (i.e., coparenting alliance), and their impact considered together. The final sample included 426 previously incarcerated fathers and the biological mothers of their three-year-old children. Using hierarchical multiple regression, I examined three sets of analyses: 1) the association between parental depressive symptoms and children's behavior outcomes, 2) the association between coparenting alliance and children's behavior, 3) the association between parental depressive symptoms and children's behavior as moderated by coparenting alliance. Expectedly, higher paternal depressive symptoms were associated with higher externalizing behavioral problems in children. Unexpectedly, higher maternal depressive symptoms were associated with lower externalizing behavioral problems. Also, unexpectedly, the associations between maternal and paternal coparenting alliance and both child behavioral outcomes were not statistically significant. Further, when mothers reported lower coparenting alliance with their child's father, the negative association between fathers' depressive symptoms and children’s internalizing behavioral problems was not attenuated; in fact, children had higher internalizing behavioral problems. My findings suggests father's depressive symptoms are an important point of consideration given the deleterious effects parental depressive symptoms can have on children, and the risks for depressive symptoms among formerly incarcerated fathers. Further, my findings have implications for addressing and treating fathers' depressive symptoms when children are relatively young in order to lower internalizing behavior problems from persisting across and beyond childhood.