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Aging and psychological distress: Assessing the importance of economic resources and social support

Myers, John Earl, Jr.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1056136907

Abstract Details

1992, Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, Social Welfare.
This study was designed to answer four research questions: (1) How are psychological distress, economic resources, and social support distributed among a sample of older persons? (2) To what extent is mortality in later life associated with distress, economic resources, and social support? (3) To what extent are stability and change in psychological distress associated with stability and change in economic and social resources? (4) To what extent can social resources buffer the loss of economic resources? Data were drawn from the Study of Older People in Cleveland, Ohio, conducted by the U.S. General Accounting Office in 1975 and from follow-up interviews of surviving respondents in 1984. A cluster design was used to draw a sample of 1,834 non-institutionalized persons that was representative of the 65-and-over population of the City of Cleveland in 1975. The original study incorporated the Older Americans Resources and Services (OARS) survey instruments developed at Duke University in the 1970s. Since the original sample was representative of the elderly population of Cleveland, the distributions of key variables provide a rough epidemiology of distress and its correlates among this population. Nearly one-fourth of the sa mple (22.5 percent) was classified as low on both the economic-resource and social-support measures. This group was at risk for both high distress and mortality between 1975 and 1984. Only 4.5 percent of the survivors were in this "double-disadvantaged" category in 1984. Strong levels of social support appear to compensate for low levels of economic resources, but the opposite pattern does not appear to be true. Several important changes were found between 1975 and 1984. Not only did the self-assessed mental health of the survivors not decline, it improved significantly, as did perceptions of their social supports and the adequacy of their economic resources. At the same time, survivors experienced increases in the psychological symptomatology between Time 1 and Time 3. While economic resources and social supports were correlated with the probability of survival to Time 3, age at Time 1 and gender were much more powerful predictors of survival. Among survivors, improvement or stability in mental health and social support scores were as common as declines, which were not strongly correlated with any of the major explanatory variables. Discussion of the findings emphasized the long time lag between observations and the approximate nature of the indicators as impediments to more definitive conclusions.
Claudia Coulton (Advisor)
146 p.
Aging; psychological; distress; Assessing; economic resources; social support

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Myers, Jr., J. E. (1992). Aging and psychological distress: Assessing the importance of economic resources and social support [Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1056136907

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Myers, Jr., John. Aging and psychological distress: Assessing the importance of economic resources and social support. 1992. Case Western Reserve University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1056136907.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Myers, Jr., John. "Aging and psychological distress: Assessing the importance of economic resources and social support." Doctoral dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 1992. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1056136907

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

case1056136907
708
© 1992, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies and OhioLINK.