Assessing health insurance literacy among domestic and international students.

College students are mandated to have health insurance in many universities in the United States. All students must comprehend insurance concepts to maximize their benefits. This study compared the level of health insurance literacy and information access problems between international and domestic graduate students.

Understanding mental health in older adults: exploring the interplay of wisdom, perceived poor health, and attitudes toward aging.

Objectives: Late adulthood is marked by challenges that impact well-being. While perceived health, wisdom, and positive attitudes toward aging correlate with better mental health in later life, their interrelations are not well understood. This study explored if three-dimensional wisdom could buffer the negative impact of poor physical health on mental health, and if positive attitudes toward aging mediated the effects of wisdom and poor health on mental health.

The mediating role of health-related behavior in the relationship between wisdom and depressive symptoms in older Polish adults.

Objectives: Although studies have shown that wisdom is positively related to mental health in older adults, little is known about its possible mechanisms. The current study examines whether health-related behavior can play a mediating role in the relationships between wisdom and geriatric depressive symptoms.

Methods: The study included 334 Polish older adults aged 60-99 years ( = 71.

The impact of spiritual care delivered by nurses on patients' comfort: A propensity score matched cohort utilizing electronic health record data.

Background: Spiritual care has been associated with better health outcomes. Despite increasing evidence of the benefits of spiritual care for older patients coping with illness and aggressive treatment, the role of spirituality is not well understood and implemented. Nurses, as frontline holistic healthcare providers, are in a position to address patients' spiritual needs and support them in finding meaning in life.

Effects of wisdom and religiosity on subjective well-being in old age and young adulthood: exploring the pathways through mastery and purpose in life.

Unlabelled: ABSTRACTObjectives:Prior research found that the positive association between wisdom and subjective well-being might at least partially be explained by a greater sense of mastery and purpose in life. This study tested whether religiosity provides an alternative pathway to well-being and whether the associations are moderated by age cohort and nation of residency.

Design And Participants: A quota sample design was used, stratified by age group, sex, and nation of residency, to collect cross-sectional survey data of 111 older adults (age range 62-99 years, M = 77.

Early and Midlife Predictors of Wisdom and Subjective Well-Being in Old Age.

Objectives: We explored whether wisdom and well-being in old age are the result of early personality traits related to personality growth or personality adjustment, respectively, or successful human development as outlined by Erikson's stage theory and the life course paradigm.

Method: Structural equation models were applied to analyze 60-year longitudinal data of 98 white male Harvard graduates born between 1915 and 1924. Different sets of judges rated the men's childhood and adolescence, early adult personality, and midlife generativity.

The Relation Between Age and Three-Dimensional Wisdom: Variations by Wisdom Dimensions and Education.

Objectives: Curvilinear relations between age and wisdom have been found in prior research with its peak either in young adulthood or in midlife. This study tested whether the association between age and three-dimensional wisdom differed for the cognitive, reflective, and compassionate (affective) wisdom dimensions and whether the results varied by education.

Method: OLS regression was used to analyze an online sample of 14,248 adults between the ages of 18 and 98 years (mean [M] = 36.

The Many Faces of Wisdom: An Investigation of Cultural-Historical Wisdom Exemplars Reveals Practical, Philosophical, and Benevolent Prototypes.

Psychological research on wisdom has flourished in the last 30 years, much of it investigating laypeople's implicit theories of wisdom. In three studies, we took an exemplar and prototype approach to implicit wisdom theories by asking participants to nominate one or more cultural-historical figures of wisdom. Study 1 revealed that individuals draw from a wide range of wisdom exemplars, with substantial agreement on the most iconic figures.

Stories of Growth and Wisdom: A Mixed-Methods Study of People Living Well With Pain.

Chronic pain remains a daunting clinical challenge, affecting 30% of people in the United States and 20% of the global population. People meeting this challenge by achieving wellbeing while living with pain are a virtually untapped source of wisdom about this persistent problem. Employing a concurrent mixed-methods design, we studied 80 people living with chronic pain with "positive stories to tell" using semi-structured interviews and standardized questionnaires.

Wisdom and Hard Times: The Ameliorating Effect of Wisdom on the Negative Association Between Adverse Life Events and Well-Being.

Objectives: Old age is characterized by many physical and social losses that adversely affect subjective well-being (SWB). Yet, past studies have shown that wisdom tends to be positively related to SWB in old age, particularly under adverse circumstances. We tested whether three-dimensional wisdom, measured as a combination of cognitive, reflective, and compassionate (affective) personality qualities, moderated the inverse association between adverse life events and well-being.

Gender as a Moderator of the Relation Between Age Cohort and Three-Dimensional Wisdom in Iranian Culture.

This study examined whether gender moderated the association between age cohort and the cognitive, reflective, and compassionate dimensions of wisdom, using an Iranian sample of 439 adults from three age cohorts: young (18-34), middle-aged (35-54), and older (55 and above). Results indicated that the interaction effect between gender and age cohort was significant for three-dimensional wisdom and all three wisdom dimensions. Compared with younger women and older men, older women tended to have less education and to score lower on the cognitive wisdom dimension, but they had similar average scores as older men on the compassionate wisdom dimension.

Wisdom at the End of Life: An Analysis of Mediating and Moderating Relations Between Wisdom and Subjective Well-Being.

Objectives: Several studies have shown that wisdom, measured as an integration of cognitive, reflective, and compassionate dimensions, is positively related to subjective well-being in old age. This study investigated whether wisdom might be particularly beneficial for people at the end of life, when extrinsic means to increase well-being largely disappear, and whether the association between wisdom and well-being is mediated by mastery and purpose in life.

Methods: Samples of 156 older community residents (M = 71 years) and 41 older hospice patients and nursing home residents (M = 77 years) were analyzed, using a moderated and mediated path model.

Wisdom in Medicine: What Helps Physicians After a Medical Error?

Purpose: Confronting medical error openly is critical to organizational learning, but less is known about what helps individual clinicians learn and adapt positively after making a harmful mistake. Understanding what factors help doctors gain wisdom can inform educational and peer support programs, and may facilitate the development of specific tools to assist doctors after harmful errors occur.

Method: Using "posttraumatic growth" as a model, the authors conducted semistructured interviews (2009-2011) with 61 physicians who had made a serious medical error.

Development of a 12-Item Abbreviated Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS-12): Item Selection and Psychometric Properties.

Wisdom has been reported to be associated with better mental health and quality of life among older adults. Over the past decades, there has been considerable growth in empirical research on wisdom, including the development of standardized measures. The 39-item Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS) is a useful assessment tool, given its rigorous development and good psychometric properties.

Childhood adversity, midlife generativity, and later life well-being.

Objectives: Prior studies confirm that after experiencing childhood adversity, resilient adults can recover and engage in generative growth. This study explored the long-term effects of childhood adversity (assessed as harsh parenting and/or childhood poverty) on successful aging for individuals who either achieved or failed to achieve Erikson's psychosocial developmental stage of generativity in midlife.

Method: The study utilized a sample of 636 men from the Harvard Sample and Inner City Cohort of the 73-year longitudinal Study of Adult Development.

The measurement of wisdom: a commentary on Taylor, Bates, and Webster's comparison of the SAWS and 3D-WS.

In a commentary on Taylor, Bates, and Webster's article (2011, Experimental Aging Research, 37, pp. 129-140), the author (a) clarifies the development and assessment of the Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (3D-WS); (b) describes the difference between the essential components of wisdom and its predictors, correlates, and consequences; and (c) conducts additional bivariate correlation analyses between the components of the 3D-WS and Webster's Self-Administered Wisdom Scale (SAWS) and all the forgiveness and psychological well-being subscales. Results show that the cognitive, reflective, and affective dimensions of the 3D-WS were significantly and positively correlated with all the forgiveness and psychological well-being subscales.

Expert consensus on characteristics of wisdom: a Delphi method study.

Purpose: Wisdom has received increasing attention in empirical research in recent years, especially in gerontology and psychology, but consistent definitions of wisdom remain elusive. We sought to better characterize this concept via an expert consensus panel using a 2-phase Delphi method.

Design And Methods: A survey questionnaire comprised 53 Likert scale statements related to the concepts of wisdom, intelligence, and spirituality was developed to determine if and how wisdom was viewed as being distinct from the latter 2 concepts.

The natural history of male mental health: health and religious involvement.

In prior studies, the effect of religious involvement upon physical health has shown generally positive results, but these studies have been marred by confounders. The 65-year-old US prospective Study of Adult Development has offered an opportunity to repeat these studies with somewhat better control over confounders. The physical and mental health of 224 Harvard University sophomores was monitored for 65 years.