61 research outputs found
Critique of Cognitive Measures in the Health Retirement Study (HRS) and the Asset and Health Dynamics among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) Study
No full texthttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/196307/1/Lachman&Spiro- HRScognitive.pdfSEL
Women at war: The crucible of Vietnam
No full textParution d'un article intéressant sur les femmes vétérans de la guerre du Viêt-Nam. Accès libre sur Science Direct, mise en ligne le 15 janvier 2017. Auteur.e.s : Anica Pless Kaiser, VA National Center for PTSD, VA Boston Healthcare System and Boston University School of Medicine Daniel H. Kabat, Gold Health Strategies, Inc., New York Avron Spiro III, Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center, VA Boston Healthcare System and Boston University Schools of Public..
Recommended from our members
The Effects of War Stressors and Psychosocial Factors on Mental Health among Korean Vietnam War Veterans
No full textThe purpose of this dissertation was to examine the effects of war stressors and psychosocial factors on negative and positive mental health outcomes among Korean Vietnam War veterans. The sample consisted of 367 male veterans who completed a self-reported survey conducted in 2017 (Mage = 72, SD = 2.66, range = 65-84). Most were married (86.89%), high school graduates or below (89.4%), and served at the Army (87.5%).
In Study 1, we examined the relative impacts of four types of war stressors (combat exposure, malevolent environments, perceived threat, and moral injury) on PTSD, depressive, and anxiety symptoms, controlling for demographics (education, income) and psychosocial factors (optimism, unit cohesion, and homecoming experience). Overall, combat exposure was significantly associated with the three types of psychological outcomes. However, its impact became non-significant when subjective war stressors (malevolent environments, perceived threat, and moral injury) were added to the models. Interestingly, malevolent environments, which may be regarded less severe but more chronic stressors, were consistently and strongly associated with higher levels of PTSD, depressive, and anxiety symptoms. Moral injury had a unique impact on PTSD and anxiety symptoms, while perceived threat was independently associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms. Among psychosocial factors, only optimism provided an independent impact on the three types of mental health outcomes in the final regression models. The results are in line with James et al. (2013) and Maguen et al. (2009), which showed stronger effects of moral injury or perceive threat over combat exposure on PTSD symptoms, but extended it by examining the unique effects of four types of war stressors on depressive or anxiety symptoms, as well as PTSD symptoms.
In Study 2, we sought to identify the classifications of veterans’ mental health, using late-onset stress symptomatology (LOSS), PTSD symptoms, and psychosocial well-being (WB). A latent profile analysis yielded five classes as the best phenotypes of mental health: 1) Low Affect (n = 45, low LOSS, low PTSD, and low WB), 2) Resilience (n = 43, middle LOSS, low PTSD, and high WB), 3) Normal (n = 134, middle LOSS, middle PTSD, and middle WB), 4) Moderate Distress (n = 109, moderate LOSS, moderate PTSD, and middle WB), and 5) Severe Distress (n = 24, high LOSS, high PTSD, and middle WB). The Resilience class showed the highest levels of optimism, desirable appraisals of military service, and social support from family, significant others, friends, and military peers. Undesirable appraisals of military service were highest in the Severe Distress class, and lowest in the Resilience and Low Affect classes. These results provide empirical evidence for the individual-level process model from Spiro, Settersten, and Aldwin (2016), which emphasized the beneficial impacts of resilience resources on negative and positive mental health outcomes.
Given that most research findings on veterans are from studies of Western veterans, the findings from this dissertation provide information about the long-term impacts of multiple types of war stressors on psychological distress and the importance of intervention focusing on resilience resources for mental health among Korean Vietnam War veterans, an Asian veteran sample. Specifically, it revealed relatively high levels of PTSD in this sample, suggesting a need of psychosocial interventions to improve the mental health in this group
Recommended from our members
Does Hemoglobin A1c Influence the Relationship between Stressful Life Events and Cognition in Later Life? Findings from the VA Normative Aging Study
No full textWith Type 2 diabetes sharply growing in prevalence around the world, there has been an increased interest in adverse health outcomes resulting from excessively high blood sugar and the associated damage to blood vessels, increasing the risk of a variety of chronic illnesses and mortality. If untreated, high blood sugar can result in increased hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), which can damage veins and arteries for the duration of these erythrocytes’ lifespan, resulting in accumulative damage and loss of efficiency of the circulatory system. Both HbA1c and stressful life events (SLEs) have demonstrated independent effects on cognition in late life, with higher levels of both stress and HbA1c impairing cognition. SLEs can influence a variety of physiological pathways, including HbA1c, thus it is possible that HbA1c can moderate the influence of SLEs on cognitive function. The present study investigated the mediating and moderating effects of HbA1c on the relationship between SLEs and cognitive outcomes in late life. Both global and fluid cognitive measures to investigate general and domain-specific declines associated with both SLEs and HbA1, and then age stratified these same analyses to examine whether the old-old (75+) are more vulnerable, will be used to investigate the potential relationships between these variables. The sample consisted of older adult males (N = 578) from the VA Normative Aging Study (M age = 74.3 years, SD = 6.5) . Structural equation models showed that both SLE and HbA1c exhibited direct effects that varied depending upon the cognitive outcome and type of analysis. However, SLE and HbA1c were unrelated in this sample, therefore no mediation effects were found. One moderation effect was found for the pattern recognition task in the general sample; however the interaction was in the opposite effect of the direct effects, and further investigation suggested a multicollinearity problems, potentially nullifying this result. The analyses stratified by age (< 75 and 75+) yielded some interesting results. Within age group, age was consistently an inversely associated with MMSE and word list total recall, but no significant relationship to verbal fluency and pattern recognition in the old-old group, suggesting either plateau effects, survivor effects, or potentially a specific vulnerability. Further, education appeared to be more protective against cognitive deficits in the old-old group when compared to the young-old group, and HbA1c was more consistently inversely related to cognition in the old-old group, while stress was more likely to have a significant relation in the young-old group. One moderation model for verbal fluency was significant for the old-old group, and results suggested that those high in HbA1c and SLE had lower scores for verbal fluency. Future research should be conducted with more diverse samples, and better aligning the timing of the stress and HbA1c assays. The implications of this work include, bolsters our understanding of how joint effects of physiology and stress may influence specific domains of cognitive function in aging, perhaps resulting in accelerated aging
Recommended from our members
SpiroLongTermOutcomesAppendixB.pdf
No full textMost research on military service focuses on its short-term negative consequences, especially the mental and physical injuries of those deployed in warzones. However, studies of long-term outcomes reveal surprisingly positive effects of military service—both those early in adulthood that grow over time and others that can emerge later in life. These multidomain effects have been found in veterans of World War II and the Korean War and are now being seen in veterans of the Vietnam War. Although some are directly attributable to public policies such as the GI Bill, which facilitate educational and economic gains, there are personal developmental gains as well, including autonomy, emotional maturity and resilience, mastery, and leadership skills, that lead to better health and well-being in later life. These long-term effects vary across persons, change over time within persons, and often reflect processes of cumulative advantage and disadvantage. We propose a life-span model of the effects of military service that provides a perspective for probing both long-term positive and negative outcomes for aging veterans. We further explicate the model by focusing on both sociocultural dynamics and individual processes. We identify public-use data that can be examined to evaluate this model, and offer a set of questions that can be used to assess military service. Finally, we outline an agenda for dedicated inquiry into such effects and consider policy implications for the health and well-being of aging veterans in later life.Keywords: Veterans, Mental health, Well-being, Health, ResilienceKeywords: Veterans, Mental health, Well-being, Health, ResilienceKeywords: Veterans, Mental health, Well-being, Health, ResilienceKeywords: Veterans, Mental health, Well-being, Health, Resilienc
Recommended from our members
SpiroLongTermOutcomes.pdf
No full textMost research on military service focuses on its short-term negative consequences, especially the mental and physical injuries of those deployed in warzones. However, studies of long-term outcomes reveal surprisingly positive effects of military service—both those early in adulthood that grow over time and others that can emerge later in life. These multidomain effects have been found in veterans of World War II and the Korean War and are now being seen in veterans of the Vietnam War. Although some are directly attributable to public policies such as the GI Bill, which facilitate educational and economic gains, there are personal developmental gains as well, including autonomy, emotional maturity and resilience, mastery, and leadership skills, that lead to better health and well-being in later life. These long-term effects vary across persons, change over time within persons, and often reflect processes of cumulative advantage and disadvantage. We propose a life-span model of the effects of military service that provides a perspective for probing both long-term positive and negative outcomes for aging veterans. We further explicate the model by focusing on both sociocultural dynamics and individual processes. We identify public-use data that can be examined to evaluate this model, and offer a set of questions that can be used to assess military service. Finally, we outline an agenda for dedicated inquiry into such effects and consider policy implications for the health and well-being of aging veterans in later life.Keywords: Mental health, Health, Resilience, Veterans, Well-beingKeywords: Mental health, Health, Resilience, Veterans, Well-bein
Recommended from our members
SpiroLongTermOutcomesAppendix.pdf
No full textMost research on military service focuses on its short-term negative consequences, especially the mental and physical injuries of those deployed in warzones. However, studies of long-term outcomes reveal surprisingly positive effects of military service—both those early in adulthood that grow over time and others that can emerge later in life. These multidomain effects have been found in veterans of World War II and the Korean War and are now being seen in veterans of the Vietnam War. Although some are directly attributable to public policies such as the GI Bill, which facilitate educational and economic gains, there are personal developmental gains as well, including autonomy, emotional maturity and resilience, mastery, and leadership skills, that lead to better health and well-being in later life. These long-term effects vary across persons, change over time within persons, and often reflect processes of cumulative advantage and disadvantage. We propose a life-span model of the effects of military service that provides a perspective for probing both long-term positive and negative outcomes for aging veterans. We further explicate the model by focusing on both sociocultural dynamics and individual processes. We identify public-use data that can be examined to evaluate this model, and offer a set of questions that can be used to assess military service. Finally, we outline an agenda for dedicated inquiry into such effects and consider policy implications for the health and well-being of aging veterans in later life.Keywords: Resilience, Veterans, Mental health, Health, Well-beingKeywords: Resilience, Veterans, Mental health, Health, Well-bein
Recommended from our members
A Life-span Perspective on Combat Exposure and PTSD Symptoms in Later Life: Findings From the VA Normative Aging Study
No full textPurpose of the Study: We tested a life-span model of combat exposure on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in later life, examining the direct and indirect effects of prewar, warzone, and postwar factors.
Design and Methods: The sample included 947 male World War II and Korean War veterans from the VA Normative Aging Study (Mage = 65, SD = 7). They completed mail surveys on childhood family environment, military service and postwar experience, stressful life events, and PTSD symptoms (response rates > 80%).
Results: We constructed an initial path model testing cumulative advantage and disadvantage pathways. Although all hypothesized relationships were significant, the model was not a good fit to the data. Subsequent models showed that all three life-span periods had both direct and indirect effects on PTSD symptoms and that there were interesting cross-links between the two sets of pathways.
Implications: The life-span perspective provides a useful heuristic to model various developmental effects on later-life outcomes. A supportive childhood family environment can have lifelong protective effects, whereas a conflictual one can set up lifelong patterns of pessimistic appraisals.Keywords: Homecoming, PTSD symptoms, Childhood family environment, Social support, Combat exposur
Recommended from our members
SpiroLongTermOutcomesErratum.pdf
No full textMost research on military service focuses on its short-term negative consequences, especially the mental and physical injuries of those deployed in warzones. However, studies of long-term outcomes reveal surprisingly positive effects of military service—both those early in adulthood that grow over time and others that can emerge later in life. These multidomain effects have been found in veterans of World War II and the Korean War and are now being seen in veterans of the Vietnam War. Although some are directly attributable to public policies such as the GI Bill, which facilitate educational and economic gains, there are personal developmental gains as well, including autonomy, emotional maturity and resilience, mastery, and leadership skills, that lead to better health and well-being in later life. These long-term effects vary across persons, change over time within persons, and often reflect processes of cumulative advantage and disadvantage. We propose a life-span model of the effects of military service that provides a perspective for probing both long-term positive and negative outcomes for aging veterans. We further explicate the model by focusing on both sociocultural dynamics and individual processes. We identify public-use data that can be examined to evaluate this model, and offer a set of questions that can be used to assess military service. Finally, we outline an agenda for dedicated inquiry into such effects and consider policy implications for the health and well-being of aging veterans in later life.Keywords: Veterans, Mental health, Resilience, Health, Well-beingKeywords: Veterans, Mental health, Resilience, Health, Well-beingKeywords: Veterans, Mental health, Resilience, Health, Well-beingKeywords: Veterans, Mental health, Resilience, Health, Well-bein
- …
