The Current State of Gerontological Counseling Research: A 26‐Year Content Analysis

Abstract

Because of demographic changes and the prioritization of Medicare reimbursement, there is greater attention to the mental health needs of older adults. To better understand the current state of gerontological counseling research, the authors completed a content analysis of counseling scholarship spanning 26 years. Only 1.68% of the articles reviewed focused on topics related to gerontological counseling. The authors analyzed publishing patterns, topics explored, and the roles of theory and empirical research in gerontological counseling research.

Taking Access to the Community: An Ecological Systems Framework for In‐Home Counseling With Older Adults

“…Conceptualizing clients within the in‐home setting using Bronfenbrenner's () EST can assist an in‐home counselor to better understand older adult clients contextually. The older adult population is exponentially growing along with the need for counselor educators to train and prepare counselors for working with this population (Fullen, ; Fullen, Gorby, Chan, Dobmeier, & Jordan, ). Using EST can serve as an applicable framework to examine contextual and developmental factors impeding access for older adult communities to mental health care and community supports for wellness.…”

Medicare Reimbursement for Counselors: Counseling Professionals’ Advocacy Beliefs and Behavior

“…Previous research indicates that many counseling students have an interest in topics related to gerontological counseling, such as grief, retirement, caregiving, and family counseling with aging parents (Foster, Kreider, & Waugh, 2009), and positive attitudes about aging are positively correlated with multicultural competence (McBride & Hays, 2012). Alternatively, there is a lack of references to aging or ageism in the 2016 CACREP Standards (Fullen, 2018), as well as a lack of research on older adulthood within counseling journals (Fullen, Gorby, Chan, Dobmeier, & Jordan, 2019). It is possible that master’s students are not adequately exposed to discussion about the mental health needs of older adults, and students may subsequently infer that professional counseling is not as relevant to older adults as it is to other age groups.…”

Gerontological Counseling Trends in Adultspan Journal : 1999–2019

“…All articles generated in the searches were then visually inspected to confirm that the article focused on GC or related issues. Fullen et al (2019) utilized human preset coding methodology to analyze the data using a priori coding measures, including a codebook and a coding form "based on theory, past research, and often, pilot work that includes immersion in the message pool under investigation" (Neuendorf & Skalski, 2009, p. 207). The codebook consisted of several codes that informed the content analysis as follows: (a) Does the article meet the consensus standard for having a focus on aging/older adulthood/GC?…”

“…

Using quantitative content analysis, we categorized 76 out of 154 articles (49.35%) published in Adultspan Journal from 1999 to 2019 as focused on gerontological counseling. This study explored publication trends for these articles and compared results with a larger study (Fullen et al, 2019) on publication trends for gerontological counseling across all counselingrelated journals.

…”