Use of CES-D among 56–66 year old people of Dutch, Moroccan and Turkish origin: Measurement invariance and mean differences between the groups

Patient-reported outcomes for people with diabetes: what and how to measure? A narrative review

Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are valuable for shared decision making and research. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are questionnaires used to measure PROs, such as health-related quality of life (HRQL). Although core outcome sets for trials and clinical practice have been developed separately, they, as well as other initiatives, recommend different PROs and PROMs. In research and clinical practice, different PROMs are used (some generic, some disease-specific), which measure many different things. This is a threat to the validity of research and clinical findings in the field of diabetes. In this narrative review, we aim to provide recommendations for the selection of relevant PROs and psychometrically sound PROMs for people with diabetes for use in clinical practice and research. Based on a general conceptual framework of PROs, we suggest that relevant PROs to measure in people with diabetes are: disease-specific symptoms (e.g. worries about hypoglycaemia and diabetes distress), general symptoms (e.g. fatigue and depression), functional status, general health perceptions and overall quality of life. Generic PROMs such as the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), WHO Disability Assessment Schedule (WHODAS 2.0), or Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) measures could be considered to measure commonly relevant PROs, supplemented with disease-specific PROMs where needed. However, none of the existing diabetes-specific PROM scales has been sufficiently validated, although the Diabetes Symptom Self-Care Inventory (DSSCI) for measuring diabetes-specific symptoms and the Diabetes Distress Scale (DDS) and Problem Areas in Diabetes (PAID) for measuring distress showed sufficient content validity. Standardisation and use of relevant PROs and psychometrically sound PROMs can help inform people with diabetes about the expected course of disease and treatment, for shared decision making, to monitor outcomes and to improve healthcare. We recommend further validation studies of diabetes-specific PROMs that have sufficient content validity for measuring disease-specific symptoms and consider generic item banks developed based on item response theory for measuring commonly relevant PROs.

The Comparability of Perceived Physical and Mental Health Measures Across Immigrants and Natives in the United States

The comparative study of perceived physical and mental health in general-and the comparative study of health between the native-born and immigrants, in particular-requires that the groups understand survey questions inquiring about their health in the same way and display similar response patterns. After all, observed differences in perceived health may not reflect true differences but rather cultural bias in the health measures. Research on cross-country measurement equivalence between immigrants and natives on self-reported health measures has received very limited attention to date, resulting in a growing demand for the validation of existing perceived health measures using samples of natives and immigrants and establishing measurement equivalence of health-related assessment tools. This study, therefore, aims to examine measurement equivalence of self-reported physical and mental health indicators between immigrants and natives in the United States. Using pooled data from the 2015-2017 IPUMS Health Surveys, we examine the cross-group measurement equivalence properties of five concepts that are measured by multiple indicators: (1) perceived limitations in activities of daily life; (2) self-reported disability; (3) perceived functional limitations; (4) perceived financial stress; and (5) nonspecific psychological distress. Furthermore, we examine the comparability of these data among respondents of different ethnoracial origins and from different regions of birth, who report few versus many years since migration, their age, gender, and the language used to respond to the interview (e.g., English vs. Spanish). We test for measurement equivalence using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. The results reveal that health scales are comparable across the examined groups. This finding allows drawing meaningful conclusions about similarities and differences among natives and immigrants on measures of perceived health in these data.

Psychological Resilience in the Context of Disability: A Study With Turkish and Moroccan Young-Old Immigrants Living in the Netherlands

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

The disability paradox postulates that some individuals with severe functional limitations demonstrate psychological resilience, that is, good mental health and quality of life. Resilience to disabilities has been linked to psychological (e.g., mastery) and social factors (e.g., social provisions). It is, however, less clear whether cultural factors can provide additional resources for resilience building in older immigrants. We investigated the extent to which sociodemographic, psychosocial, and cultural factors contributed to psychological resilience to disabilities among immigrants of Turkish and Moroccan descent in the Netherlands.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHOD

The sample included 478 older immigrants aged 55-65 years. Data were analyzed using latent profile analysis and multinomial logistic regressions.

RESULTS

Five categories were identified: (a) High physical and emotional functioning; (b) High physical but poor emotional functioning; (c) Low physical but high emotional functioning (resilient); (d) Low physical and emotional functioning; and (e) Low physical and very low emotional functioning. Resilient functioning (reference category) was associated with poorer Dutch language proficiency, lower levels of loneliness, greater mastery, and more religious coping.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Findings provide support for the disability paradox and highlight social provisions, mastery, and religiosity/spirituality as important resources for psychological resilience in older labor migrants. Poor Dutch language proficiency is discussed as a potential factor contributing to severe functional limitations in the resilient category.

The Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam: cohort update 2019 and additional data collections

The Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) is a prospective cohort study of older adults in the Netherlands, initially based on a nationally representative sample of people aged 55-84 years. The study has been ongoing since 1992, and focuses on the determinants, trajectories and consequences of physical, cognitive, emotional and social functioning. Strengths of the LASA study include its multidisciplinary character, the availability of over 25 years of follow-up, and the cohort-sequential design that allows investigations of longitudinal changes, cohort differences and time trends in functioning. The findings from LASA have been reported in over 600 publications so far (see www.lasa-vu.nl). This article provides an update of the design of the LASA study and its methods, on the basis of recent developments. We describe additional data collections, such as additional nine-monthly measurements in-between the regular three-yearly waves that have been conducted among the oldest old during 2016-2019, and the inclusion of a cohort of older Turkish and Moroccan migrants.