How life stressors influence modifiable lifestyle factors, depressive symptoms, and physical and mental health among Vietnamese older women?

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Author(s)
Tiet-Hanh, Dao-Tran
Anderson, Debra
Seib, Charrlotte
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2017
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Show full item recordAbstract
Background: Research has demonstrated that exposure to life stressors can influence health through a number of
pathways. However, knowledge about the patterns of life stressors and their contributions to health in different
populations is limited. Vietnamese older women have attracted little research to date in this area.
Methods: This cross-sectional study used an interview-administered-questionnaire to collect data from 440
Vietnamese older women. Descriptive analysis was used to describe life stressors among Vietnamese older women.
Binary analysis and Structural Equation Modelling statistical analysis were used to examine ...
View more >Background: Research has demonstrated that exposure to life stressors can influence health through a number of pathways. However, knowledge about the patterns of life stressors and their contributions to health in different populations is limited. Vietnamese older women have attracted little research to date in this area. Methods: This cross-sectional study used an interview-administered-questionnaire to collect data from 440 Vietnamese older women. Descriptive analysis was used to describe life stressors among Vietnamese older women. Binary analysis and Structural Equation Modelling statistical analysis were used to examine the influences of life stressors on modifiable lifestyle factors, depressive symptoms, physical and mental health among Vietnamese older women. Results: Vietnamese older women in this study commonly reported the experience of losing a close person, including a baby/child, serious health or money problems, violence and disaster. Among the study participants, (1) exposure to more life stressors increased their depressive symptoms, and decreased their physical and mental health; (2) exposure to more life stressors also increased their physical health by increasing their physical activity levels. Conclusion: Life stressors influenced health among Vietnamese older women through different pathways. Interventions to manage stress and depressive symptoms are required for Vietnamese older women in the future.
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View more >Background: Research has demonstrated that exposure to life stressors can influence health through a number of pathways. However, knowledge about the patterns of life stressors and their contributions to health in different populations is limited. Vietnamese older women have attracted little research to date in this area. Methods: This cross-sectional study used an interview-administered-questionnaire to collect data from 440 Vietnamese older women. Descriptive analysis was used to describe life stressors among Vietnamese older women. Binary analysis and Structural Equation Modelling statistical analysis were used to examine the influences of life stressors on modifiable lifestyle factors, depressive symptoms, physical and mental health among Vietnamese older women. Results: Vietnamese older women in this study commonly reported the experience of losing a close person, including a baby/child, serious health or money problems, violence and disaster. Among the study participants, (1) exposure to more life stressors increased their depressive symptoms, and decreased their physical and mental health; (2) exposure to more life stressors also increased their physical health by increasing their physical activity levels. Conclusion: Life stressors influenced health among Vietnamese older women through different pathways. Interventions to manage stress and depressive symptoms are required for Vietnamese older women in the future.
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Journal Title
BMC Psychiatry
Volume
17
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2017. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
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Page numbers are not for citation purposes. Instead, this article has the unique article number of 232.
Subject
Clinical sciences
Health services and systems
Public health
Psychology