RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A search strategy was applied in six databases and grey literature. Inclusion criteria were primary observational studies on informal caregiving for care recipients aged 60 years and above, in the English language. Informal caregivers were those not formally hired and multimorbidity referred to presence of at least two health conditions. From a total of 2,101 titles, 230 abstracts were screened, and 19 articles were included. Quality assessment was conducted with application of the Newcastle-Ottawa-Scale.
RESULTS: Health-related and caregiving-related outcomes have been assessed for informal caregivers of older adults with multimorbidity. Caregiver subjective burden was most commonly evaluated and often reported to be low to moderate. In association with care recipient multimorbidity, caregiver burden, quality of life, and perceived difficulty in assisting the older adults were examined in 14 of the studies with mixed results. Studies were heterogeneous, with nonuniform definitions of informal caregivers and multimorbidity as well as measurement tools.
DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: This narrative review found that caring for older adults with multimorbidity impacts caregivers, although overall evidence is not conclusive. Despite caregiving-related outcomes being most commonly assessed among the caregivers, particularly subjective burden, findings suggest that it is worthwhile to examine other outcomes to enrich the evidence base.
DESIGN: A systematic review was conducted using electronic databases of CINAHL, PubMed, PsychINFO, Psychology and Behavioural Sciences Collection, SocINDEX and Web of Science for articles published until the 11th of January 2018.
ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA: All observational studies investigating the association between social support and depression among community-dwelling older adults in Asia were included.
PARTICIPANTS: Older adults aged 60 years and more who are living in the community.
EXPOSURE MEASURES: Social support.
OUTCOME MEASURES: Depression.
RESULTS: We retrieved16 356 records and screened 66 full-text articles. Twenty-four observational studies were included in the review. They consisted of five cohort studies and 19 cross-sectional studies. Social support was found to be measured by multiple components, most commonly through a combination of structural and functional constructs. Perceived social support is more commonly measured compared with received social support. Good overall social support, having a spouse or partner, living with family, having a large social network, having more contact with family and friends, having emotional and instrumental support, good support from family and satisfaction with social support are associated with less depressive symptoms among community-dwelling older adults in Asia.
CONCLUSIONS: There were 20 different social support measures and we applied a framework to allow for better comparability. Our findings emphasised the association between good social support and decrease depression among older adults. Compared with western populations, family support has a greater influence on depression among community-dwelling older adults in Asia. This indicates that the family institution needs to be incorporated into designed programmes and interventions when addressing depression in the Asian context. TRIAL : registration number : CRD42017074897.
DESIGN AND SAMPLE: Eleven focus group discussions were conducted using a semi-structured interview based on the socio-ecological framework. The data were analyzed using a multistep process of thematic analysis.
RESULTS: Three themes emerged from the data analysis: (1) The predicament: being unwilling or not able to intervene (2) Bridging the older people and health system gap (3) Getting to grips with the barriers. There are multifactorial contributors identified at the individual, interpersonal, organizational, community and policy levels in each theme. These factors interact across the levels to influence nurses' capability to intervene in elder abuse.
CONCLUSION: A framework is needed to articulate Malaysian nurses' role in elder abuse intervention in terms of personal and professional development through culturally sensitive education and the establishment of clinical guidelines in the primary care setting. Strengthening organizational support and the institution of national policy and permissive reporting laws of elder abuse will empower the primary care nurses to address elder abuse in primary care settings and communities.
METHODS: A prepost study design was conducted in 2017. The 8-hour Smoking Cessation Organising, Planning and Execution (SCOPE) training comprised lectures, practical sessions and role-play sessions to 218 healthcare providers. A validated evaluation tool, Providers' Smoking Cessation Training Evaluation, was administered to assess the impact of training on knowledge, attitude and self-efficacy on smoking cessation intervention.
RESULTS: After SCOPE training, the knowledge score increased significantly from 7.96±2.34 to 10.35±1.57 (p<0.001). Attitude and self-efficacy in smoking cessation intervention also increased significantly from 34.32±4.12 to 37.04±3.92 (p<0.001) and 40.31±8.61 to 54.67±7.45 (p<0.001) respectively. Pretraining and post-training scores improved significantly for all professions, and each measure, particularly self-efficacy.
CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that SCOPE training could improve healthcare providers' knowledge, attitude and self-efficacy on smoking cessation intervention. Future training is recommended to equip healthcare providers with current knowledge, positive attitude and high self-efficacy to integrate what they have learned into practice successfully.
DESIGN: Cross sectional data were collected via face-to-face interview from June to August 2019.
SETTING: Eight government community health clinics in Kuala Pilah, a district in Negeri Sembilan state approximately 100km from Malaysian capital city Kuala Lumpur.
PARTICIPANTS: Older adults aged 60 years and above (N = 1984; Mean age 69.2, range 60-93 years) attending all eight government health clinics in the district were recruited for a face-to-face interview about health and well-being.
MEASUREMENT: The Adverse Childhood Experience International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ) and the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) were utilized to estimate childhood adversity and elder abuse respectively.
RESULTS: Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed a significant relationship between the number of cumulative ACEs and elder abuse. Compared to older adults with no self-reported adversity, those reporting three ACEs (OR 2.67, 95% CI 1.84,3.87) or four or more ACEs (OR 1.7, 95% CI 1.16, 2.48) had higher risk of any elder abuse occurrence since age 60 years. The effect was most prominent for financial and psychological elder abuse. The associations persisted in multivariate logistic regression models after adjusting for sociodemographic and health factors.
CONCLUSION: Early life adversities were significantly associated with victimization of older adults. Social and emotional support to address elder abuse should recognize that, for some men and women, there is a possibility that vulnerability to maltreatment persisted throughout their life course.
OBJECTIVE: We aim to provide evidence of the various use of PPH in outbreak management, the types of data that could be used in PPH application, and the limitations and barriers in the application of the PPH approach.
METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Articles were searched in PubMed, Web of Science, and Science Direct. Our selection of articles was based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) for Scoping Review guidelines. The outcome of the evidence assessment was presented in narrative format instead of quantitative.
RESULTS: A total of 27 articles were included in the scoping review. Most of the articles (74.1%) focused on PPH applications in performing disease surveillance and signal detection. Furthermore, the data type mostly used in the studies was surveillance (51.9%), environment (44.4), and Internet query data. Most of the articles emphasized data quality and availability (81.5%) as the main barriers in PPH applications followed by data integration and interoperability (29.6%).
CONCLUSIONS: PPH applications in outbreak management utilize a wide range of data sources and analytical techniques to enhance disease surveillance, investigation, modeling, and prediction. By leveraging these tools and approaches, PPH contributes to more effective and efficient outbreak management, ultimately reducing the burden of infectious diseases on populations. The limitation and challenges in the application of PPH approaches in outbreak management emphasize the need to strengthen the surveillance systems, promote data sharing and collaboration among relevant stakeholders, and standardize data collection methods while upholding privacy and ethical principles.
DESIGN: This is a prospective longitudinal study with 12-months follow up among older adults in Malaysia.
SETTING: Kuala Pilah, a district in Negeri Sembilan, which is one of the fourteen states in Malaysia.
PARTICIPANTS: 2,324 community-dwelling older Malaysians aged 60 years and older.
RESULTS: The overall prevalence of frailty in this study was 9.4% (95% CI 7.8-11.2). The prevalence increased at least three-fold with every 10 years of age. This increase was seen higher in women compared to men. Being frail was significantly associated with older age, women, and respondents with a higher number of chronic diseases, poor cognitive function and low socioeconomic status (p<0.05). During the 12-months follow-up, our study showed that the transition towards greater frailty states were more likely (22.9%) than transition toward lesser frailty states (19.9%) while majority (57.2%) remained unchanged. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that presence of low physical activity increased the likelihood of worsening transition towards greater frailty states by three times (OR 2.9, 95% CI 2.2-3.7) and lowered the likelihood of transition towards lesser frailty states (OR 0.3, 95% CI 0.2-0.4).
CONCLUSION: Frailty is reported among one in every eleven older adults in this study. The prevalence increased across age groups and was higher among women than men. Frailty possesses a dynamic status due to its potential reversibility. This reversibility makes it a cornerstone to delay frailty progression. Our study noted that physical activity conferred the greatest benefit as a modifiable factor in frailty prevention.