Geropsychology Commons^™

Older Adults' Health Care Utilization A Year After Experiencing Fear Or Distress From Hurricane Sandy, Laura P Sands, Yimeng Xie, Rachel Pruchno, Allison Heid, Yili Hong

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Faculty Scholarship

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether self-reports of disaster-related psychological distress predict older adults' health care utilization during the year after Hurricane Sandy, which hit New Jersey on October 29, 2012.

METHODS: Respondents were from the ORANJ BOWL Study, a random-digit dialed sample from New Jersey recruited from 2006 to 2008. Medicare hospital, emergency department (ED) and outpatient claims data from 2012 and 2013 were matched to 1607 people age 65 and older in 2012 who responded to follow-up surveys conducted from July 2013 to July 2015 to determine their hurricane-related experiences.

RESULTS: In total, 7% (107) of respondents reported they experienced …

New Measures To Capture End Of Life Concerns In Huntington Disease: Meaning And Purpose And Concern With Death And Dying From Hdqlife (A Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement System)., N E Carlozzi, N R Downing, M K Mccormack, S G Schilling, J S Perlmutter, E A Hahn, J S Lai, S Frank, K A Quaid, J S Paulsen, D Cella, S M Goodnight, J A Miner, M A Nance

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Faculty Scholarship

PURPOSE: Huntington disease (HD) is an incurable terminal disease. Thus, end of life (EOL) concerns are common in these individuals. A quantitative measure of EOL concerns in HD would enable a better understanding of how these concerns impact health-related quality of life. Therefore, we developed new measures of EOL for use in HD.

METHODS: An EOL item pool of 45 items was field tested in 507 individuals with prodromal or manifest HD. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA, respectively) were conducted to establish unidimensional item pools. Item response theory (IRT) and differential item functioning analyses were applied to …

Depressive Symptoms And Marital Satisfaction In The Context Of Chronic Disease: A Longitudinal Dyadic Analysis, Rachel Pruchno, Maureen Wilson-Genderson, Francine P Cartwright

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Faculty Scholarship

These analyses examined the longitudinal relationships between depressive symptoms and marital satisfaction over a 2-year period as experienced by 315 patients with end-stage renal disease and their spouses. Using multilevel modeling, the authors examined both individual and cross-partner effects of depressive symptoms and marital satisfaction on patients and spouses, testing bidirectional causality. Results indicate that mean and time-varying depressive symptoms of both patients and spouses were associated with their own marital satisfaction. Although mean marital satisfaction was associated with own depressive symptoms for both patients and spouses, time-varying marital satisfaction did not affect depressive symptoms for either patients or spouses. …