Efficacy and challenges of a culturally relevant intervention to improve attitudes to aging

Abstract

Objectives: Attitudes to aging have been linked with important health outcomes. It is unclear whether interventions to improve attitudes to aging are effective across cultural contexts. This study investigated the efficacy of an intervention among women of either Australian or Chinese backgrounds. Methods: Among 96 women who provided baseline measures, 86 attended a single, 90-min group session on either healthy aging or healthy diet. Measures of three domains of attitudes to aging were collected at baseline, then immediately and 8 weeks after the intervention. Results: The intervention improved attitudes in the psychological growth domain, but not the physical change or psychosocial loss domains. Cultural identification did not moderate intervention efficacy. Discussion: The findings suggest that brief, culturally inclusive interventions may be partially effective at improving attitudes to aging. Furthermore, research is needed to investigate if the intervention would be more effective when baseline attitudes to aging are less positive.

Factors Affecting Attitudes towards Older People in Undergraduate Nursing Students

“…The scores obtained were similar to those obtained in other studies on nursing students in Europe and the United States [ 39 , 40 , 41 ], and slightly higher than in Asian students [ 42 ]. The cultural background seems to be an important factor, as other studies have also reported more negative scores in Asian countries compared to western countries [ 43 ].…”

Assessing losses and gains with ageing: the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the Attitudes to Ageing Questionnaire

“…Attitudes towards aging seem to be a promising area of research regarding interventions on successful and healthy aging (Kunuroglu & Vural Yuzbasi, 2021;Laidlaw, 2010;Segel-Karpas et al, 2022;Yamada et al, 2015). Seah et al (2019) found that short, culturally inclusive interventions were effective in enhancing attitudes towards aging. Interventions targeting attitudes towards aging could be a potential clinical approach for improving quality of life in older adults.…”