Development and validation of the caregiver needs and resources assessment.

Introduction: Existing caregiver assessment tools were long criticized for focusing on the needs and burden while neglecting the importance of the resources. The current study aimed to develop a multidimensional and time-effective assessment tool that measures both needs and resources of non-paid family caregivers of older adults for screening and service-matching purposes. Methods: Items of the Caregiver Needs and Resources Assessment (CNRA) were developed from extensive literature reviews and focus group interviews of family caregivers and social workers in the field. In addition, we collected 317 valid responses from family caregivers of older adults from local non-government organizations in examining the psychometric properties of the CNRA. Results: The results revealed a 12-factor structure that fitted nicely into the conceptual frame of needs and resources domains. Need factors were positively associated with mental health symptoms, while resource factors were positively associated with peace in mind, meaning-making, and personal gain measures. The 36-item CNRA revealed good internal reliability and convergent validity. Discussion: The CNRA has the potential to be used as a compact yet balanced assessment tool for understanding both the needs and resources of caregivers for human service professionals.

Family caregiving during the COVID-19 pandemic: factors associated with anxiety and depression of carers for community-dwelling older adults in Hong Kong.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupts the daily routine and increases the caregiving load of the family carers of older adults. This study examined how the pandemic may impact mental health and investigated the prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms in family carers of older people. METHODS: Two hundred and thirty-six family carers of older adults participated in this cross-sectional survey study. Outcome measures included their symptoms of anxiety and depression, pandemic-related psychosocial factors, external factors, and the practice of preventive behaviours. RESULTS: Caseness prevalence of anxiety and depression among family carers was 25 and 56% respectively. Working carers were more depressed than non-working, while younger carers reported more anxiety and depression symptoms than older. Hand hygiene and getting drugs from the hospital positively predicted depression while healthy lifestyle negatively predicted depression. These variables, together with perceived risk and severity and the worry of getting infected, predicted anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of mental health symptoms was alarming. Telemedicine practice, including online pharmaceutical services and the Internet Hospital plus Drug Delivery platform, could be a solution in alleviating the burden and worry of infection of family carers. Tailored-made interventions by age and working status of the family carers are recommended.

Age Differences in Visual Attention and Responses to Intergenerational and Non-intergenerational Workplace Conflicts.

Intergenerational conflict occurs commonly in the workplace because of age-related differences in work attitudes and values. This study aimed to advance the current literature on aging and work by examining whether younger and older workers differ in their visual attention, emotional responses, and conflict strategies when observing hypothetical conflict vignettes involving a coworker from a similar or dissimilar age group. The indirect effect of age group on emotional responses and conflict strategies through visual fixation on conflict scenes was also examined. Utilizing eye tracking, the visual attention of younger and older workers while watching two hypothetical workplace task conflict videos was recorded and compared. The participants were also asked to imagine how they would respond if they were the main actor in the vignettes. A total of 94 working adults, including 48 younger workers and 46 older workers, participated in the eye tracking experiment. Older workers reported fewer negative and more positive emotions than their younger counterparts after watching the conflict videos, particularly those on the non-intergenerational conflict. Younger workers used more dominating in the intergenerational conflict than in the non-intergenerational conflict; such discrepancy between conflict types was relatively small in older workers. Compared with younger workers, older workers fixated significantly less on the coworker during the intergenerational conflict scenes. A significant indirect effect of age group through visual fixation on the coworker was observed for positive emotions and avoiding. Results revealed that older workers may regulate their emotional reactions and conflict strategies to workplace conflicts by reducing their attention to negative stimuli.

A comparison of positive youth development against depression and suicidal ideation in youth from Hong Kong and the Netherlands.

Background This study tests the buffering effects of positive youth development (PYD) factors against depression and suicidal ideation across Hong Kong and Dutch students. Methods We collected data on depression, suicidal ideation, history of childhood maltreatment, and PYD from 565 Dutch and Hong Kong undergraduates. The three PYD factors, prosocial attributes, positive identity, and cognitive-behavioral competence, were examined for their moderating role in the relationship among childhood maltreatment, depression, and suicidal ideation in path analysis. Results Direct protective effects are found for all PYD factors in both cultures, except for cognitive-behavioral competence in the Dutch sample. A buffering effect of the PYD factors is observed in the maltreatment-depression relationship in Dutch, but not in Hong Kong students. Only behavioral competence buffers against suicidal ideation in Dutch students, while other PYD factors show no buffering effect in both groups of participants. Conclusion The differences in relationships between two samples highlights the need to consider cultural differences.

The strategic framework of tuberculosis control and prevention in the elderly: a scoping review towards End TB targets.

With the rapid pace of population ageing, tuberculosis (TB) in the elderly increasingly becomes a public health challenge. Despite the increasing burden and high risks for TB in the elderly, targeted strategy has not been well understood and evaluated. We undertook a scoping review to identify current TB strategies, research and policy gaps in the elderly and summarized the results within a strategic framework towards End TB targets. Databases of Embase, MEDLINE, Global health and EBM reviews were searched for original studies, review articles, and policy papers published in English between January 1990 and December 2015. Articles examining TB strategy, program, guideline or intervention in the elderly from public health perspective were included.Nineteen articles met the inclusion criteria. Most of them were qualitative studies, issued in high- and middle-income countries and after 2000. To break the chain of TB transmission and reactivation in the elderly, infection control, interventions of avoiding delay in diagnosis and containment are essential for preventing transmission, especially in elderly institutions and aged immigrants; screening of latent TB infection and preventive therapy had effective impacts on reducing the risk of reactivation and should be used less reluctantly in older people; optimizing early case-finding with a high index of suspicion, systematic screening for prioritized high-risk groups, initial empirical and adequate follow-up treatment with close monitoring and evaluation, as well as enhanced programmatic management are fundamental pillars for active TB elimination. Evaluation of TB epidemiology, risk factors, impacts and cost-effectiveness of interventions, adopting accurate and rapid diagnostic tools, shorter and less toxic preventive therapy, are critical issues for developing strategy in the elderly towards End TB targets.TB control strategies in the elderly were comprehensively mapped in a causal link pathway. The framework and principals identified in this study will help to evaluate and improve current program, develop targeted strategy, as well as raise more discussions on the research priority settings and policy transitions. Given the scarceness of policy and evaluated interventions, as well as the unawareness of shifting TB epidemiology and strategy especially in developing countries, the increasing need of a ready TB program for the elderly warrants further research.

An Integrated Model of Suicidal Ideation in Transcultural Populations of Chinese Adolescents.

This study tested the model of suicidal ideation, incorporating family and personal factors to predict suicidal ideation with hopelessness as a mediating factor in the Hong Kong sample, to a sample in Shanghai. Using MGSEM, the study aims to investigate the personal correlates and the family correlates of suicidal ideation in Hong Kong and Shanghai adolescents. We integrated the family ecological and diathesis-stress-hopelessness models of suicidal ideation in connecting the correlates. A cross-sectional design was used. The full model achieved metric invariance and partial path-loading invariance. Family functioning and social problem solving negatively predicted hopelessness or suicidal ideation in both the Hong Kong and Shanghai adolescents. The results supported an integrative approach in facilitating parent-adolescent communication and strengthening family functioning, and reducing the use of negative social problem-solving styles in adolescent suicide prevention.