Exploring the association between sleep and health performance of migrant home care workers and elderly care recipients in Taiwan.

This study, conducted in June and July 2022 through purposive sampling, aimed to explore the relationship between sleep and health performance in 33 pairs of elderly individuals and their migrant caregivers in southern Taiwan. Participants completed a structured questionnaire and wore an Actiwatch for seven days. Pearson correlation and independent t-test were used for analysis. Nearly 50% of foreign home care workers suffered from insomnia, and 80% of elderly care recipients with disabilities experienced sleep disorders. The number of chronic illnesses and/or dementia among the elderly and insomnia among care workers were associated with poor self-perceived health (r = -0.667, p < .001) and sleep disorders among the elderly (r = 0.368, p = .035). The problem of caregiving should be addressed. Future studies should increase the sample size and extend the duration of the study to enhance the generalizability of the findings.

Age trajectories of disability development after 65: A comparison between Japan and Taiwan.

INTRODUCTION: Disability development using age as the axis was void in the literature. Identification of the age trajectory of disability development across populations enables preparation for aging-related policies when conducting cross-national comparisons. This study compared three indicators of the development of physical disability in populations of Taiwan and Japan. METHODS: Data comprised two nationally representative panel surveys (1) the Taiwan Longitudinal Study on Aging (N = 3,037) in 1996-2011 and (2) the National Survey of the Japanese Elderly in 1996-2012 (N = 1,974). Older adults (65+) were examined longitudinally. Activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), and mobility disability development during aging were analyzed using multilevel models. RESULTS: After age standardization, Japan reported higher prevalence rate of ADL disability (14.95% vs. 9.65%) but lower IADL (19.30% vs. 30.36%) and mobility disability (36.07% vs. 49.82%) as compared with Taiwan. ADL limitation occur (ADL limitation>=1) at the age of 77.9 and 77.2 for populations in Japan and Taiwan, respectively. Populations reached three ADL limitations at the age of 86.7 and 85.0 in Japan and in Taiwan, respectively. IADL limitation occur (IADL limitation>=1) at the age of 79.1 and 74.5 for populations in Japan and Taiwan, respectively. Mobility limitation occur (Mobility limitation>=1) at the age of 70.7 and 65.3 for populations in Japan and Taiwan, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Older adults generally do not report ADL limitation until 77 and do not face serious disability until 85 or 86 in Taiwan or Japan, respectively. Mobility limitation occurs at a various age in different countries.

[Patterns of support-gaining strategies influence the support received and marital quality].

This paper examines the patterns among married couples of usage of support-gaining strategies for receiving support from the spouse, and their influence on the support received and marital quality. Questionnaire data from 452 Taiwanese married couples dealt with three types of support: emotional, substantial, and advice. The six types of support-gaining strategies were threat, other exploitation, roundabout appeal, reward, entreaty, and reasoning. The two aspects of marital quality measured were satisfaction and regret. The results showed that the patterns of usage of support-gaining strategies by couples could be classified as "mutual multiplicity," "husband-reasoning and wife-multiplicity", "mutual reasoning", and "mutual delicacy". The degrees of received support and marital quality varied by sex and patterns of strategy use. Husbands received more substantial support and reported better satisfaction, but received less emotional support and advice. Couples classified as "mutual delicacy" received the highest support and had the best marital quality. In contrast, couples classified as "mutual multiplicity" received the lowest support and had the worst marital quality. The findings suggest that using appropriate support-gaining strategies is important to marital life.

[Do we talk to different people in different ways?: types and sources of social support and support-gaining strategies].

The present paper examined whether people employ different support-gaining strategies toward various sources of support. In Study 1, 231 Taiwanese undergraduates were asked the frequency of each strategy they used for three support types: tangible, psychological, and informational, from four support sources: parents, professors, same-sex close friends, and same-sex acquaintances. In Study 2, 363 undergraduates were asked to think of an opposite-sex friend: an acquaintance, a close friend, or romantic partner, and write the frequency of each strategy they used. Results of ANOVA indicated that main effects of source and strategy and a three-way interaction of source by strategy by gender were significant. In Study 1, the students used various strategies most frequently toward parents and same-sex close friends, and least frequently to professors, and in Study 2, more frequently to close friends and romantic partners than to acquaintances. The strategy most often used was reasoning, followed by entreaty, roundabout request, exploitation, promise of reward, exhortation, and threat, in the descending order. No effect was found for the support type factor.

Stress, health, and reciprocity and sufficiency of social support: the case of university students in Japan.

The authors examined the effects of reciprocity and sufficiency of social support on the mental and physical health of 488 Japanese university students with different levels of stressors. The questionnaire included items that measured support provided for, requested by, requested of, and received from others. It also addressed negative affect associated with support relationships, as well as the levels of stressors and mental and physical health. The participants' support relationships with others were fairly reciprocal. Although being overbenefited (i.e., receiving more support than one provides) was related to stronger feelings of indebtedness, being underbenefited (i.e., providing more support than one receives) was related to stronger feelings of burden. In sum, when the participants received less support than they requested and when they provided less support than others requested, they tended to become less mentally and physically healthy. Reciprocity of support appeared to have both direct and buffering effects; however, the effects of sufficient support on health did not vary with levels of stressors.