Proactive Aging Among Holocaust Survivors: Striving for the Best Possible Life.

Objectives: To investigate methods that older Holocaust survivors and their age peers use in order to maintain the best possible life and to examine associations between these methods and subjective well-being.

Method: Participants were 481 older Israelis (mean age 77.4 ± 6.

The relationship of activity restriction and replacement with depressive symptoms among older adults.

Activity restriction is known to mediate the disease-depression relationship. Data from 423 older Israeli adults showed that having to give up activities because of failing health was related to more depressive symptoms (DS), whereas satisfactorily replacing these activities was related to DS levels comparable to those of healthier older adults. Giving up and replacing activities mediated, in part, the effect of functional limitations on DS, after controlling for health status, demographics, and resources.

Psychological distress around menopause.

The authors sought to identify a subgroup of women who are likely to experience psychological distress in the period around menopause. A sample of 189 women (mean age=49.49) was selected from the general population and rated for menopausal status, menopausal symptoms, depression, anxiety, perceived control, body image, and sex role.

Attitudes towards hormone replacement therapy among middle-aged women and men.

Objectives: To survey the attitudes of middle-aged women and men towards HRT and associated issues. Men were included because of the possible influence of their attitudes on womens decisions to use HRT.

Methods: Two-hundred women and 311 men, (not wife and husbands), between 45 and 55 years of age, from a general population sample, were queried about their attitudes towards menopause and HRT and on their knowledge about side effects of HRT.

The contribution of personal resources to physical and mental health: looking into age and gender effects.

In this study, a model that specified the effects of socioeconomic and psychological resources on physical and mental health was investigated. It was hypothesized that (a) both kinds of resources would affect physical and mental health more strongly in older than in younger adults, and that (b) socioeconomic resources would exert stronger effects in men, whereas psychological resources would exert stronger effects in women. Data were collected in an Israeli national sample.

Subjective well-being among Holocaust survivors: an examination of overlooked differentiations.

This study addressed the issue of adjustment among Holocaust survivors by multidimensional assessment of subjective well-being (SWB). Participants were Israeli Holocaust survivors incidentally included in a life-span study (Group 1; n = 466) or purposely approached for studying Holocaust survivors (Group 2; n = 178). Comparison participants had immigrated to Israel before World War II, with their parents either undergoing (Group 3; n = 270) or not undergoing the Holocaust (Group 4; n = 388); other comparison participants had immigrated after the war with parents not undergoing the Holocaust (Group 5; n = 166).

A nation's response to attack: Israelis' depressive reactions to the Gulf War.

We examined Israelis' reactions to the Gulf War and SCUD missile attacks. Four national samples of Israelis (n = 3,204) were interviewed as to depressive mood on four occasions--prior to the Gulf Crisis, as the war approached, during the SCUD missile attacks, and after cessation of hostilities. There was an expected increase in depressive mood during the period of SCUD missile attacks and a quick return to base-line levels following the hostilities.

Measuring depressive mood in elderly Israeli: reliability and validity of the Depression Adjective Check Lists.

To establish the psychometric properties of the state form of the Depression Adjective Check List (DACL) with elderly Israeli, a 1981 Hebrew version of the DACL by Lomranz, Lubin, Eyal, and Medini, along with the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale and Cantril's Self-anchoring Striving Scale, were administered to 86 independently functioning elderly persons (35 men and 51 women) living in a home for the aged. Reliability estimates (alphas and test-retest) were moderate to high; validity estimates (concurrent and construct) were again moderate to high. It was concluded that the state form of the Depression Adjective Check List is suitable for use with elderly Israeli.

Subjective well-being and its domains across different age groups: an Israeli sample.

Subjective well-being (SWB) across the life span was studied in a representative Israeli sample by a national survey of 1183 subjects, ranging from 18 to 80 years of age. Subjects were given "life scales", on which they rated their SWB in their present life, as well as their satisfaction regarding health, relations with friends, family, work, economic status, sense of personal achievement, and sense of control. The results indicate that: (a) SWB is negatively correlated with chronological age; (b) the relative strength of most of SWB domains changes in the different age groups; (c) SWB is best explained by different sets of domains in different age groups; and (d) economic status is the strongest domain, accounting for SWB in 6 out of 8 age groups.

The measurement of perimenstrual distress.

This study was undertaken to explore whether the implicit requirement of phase comparison in menstrual research influences the data obtained. One hundred fifty Israeli women responded to the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire in an altered procedure. They rated their experience of behaviors and feelings during the nonmenstrual phase.

Indoor and outdoor activities of aged women and men as related to depression and well-being.

This article examines the relations between reported level of activity and measures of affect in old people exploring possible sex differences. It was hypothesized that these relations are mediated by the satisfaction from the specific activity. The sample consisted of fifty-four women and forty-five men, ranging in age from sixty to eighty, functioning normally in the community.

Time orientation in Nazi concentration camp survivors: forty years after.

Temporal aspects were evaluated in 44 Nazi concentration camp survivors and 31 control subjects, all 50-60 years old. The survivors attached to the Holocaust a more intense role within time orientation; they were more past-oriented, less future-oriented, and had a generally more pessimistic attitude toward life events. Implications of the findings are discussed, with emphasis on the role of time orientation in the long-term effects of the Holocaust on survivors.

The meaning of time-related concepts across the life-span: an Israeli sample.

Three-hundred-thirty-eight Israeli participants rated five time-related concepts on Semantic Differential Scales. Participants constituted six, age-based, groups, representing different life stages: childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood, late adulthood, and old age. The concepts rated were: time, past, present, and future.

A Hebrew version of the Depression Adjective Check Lists.

In order to develop a Hebrew version of the Depression Adjective Check Lists (DACL) for use in research, the lists were translated by linguists and the adequacy of the translations determined. Reliability (split-half, alternate form, internal consistency, and test-retest) of translated lists E, F, and G were sufficiently high in the case of the first three and sufficiently low in the case of test-retest reliability of the state DACL. Concurrent validity was determined in three separate samples: correlations with (a)a 7-point self-rating scale of depression, (b)the MMPI-D Scale, (c)the Bradburn Scale of Psychological Well-being, the Cantril Self-anchoring Striving Scale, and the Katz Social Adjustment Symptom Subscale, and demographic variables.

Norms for the revised Hebrew version of the Depression Adjective Check List.

In order to reduce the readability level of the Hebrew version of the DACL, a new list of words with high frequency of usage in the Hebrew language was created from the translations of E, F, and G. Ninety-four Ss completed the revised form and the translated standard form E in randomized order; the correlation was .90 (p less .

Aspects of differential role perception of Israeli medical school students.

Attitudes of first year Israeli Medical School students are investigated using the Semantic Differential technique to differentiate their perceptions of the roles of doctor, patient and the mentally ill. Students also selected from among thirty-four behavioural traits those roles considered most characteristic of doctor and/or patient. A high degree of certainty and of role stereotyping is found of doctor image.