Health and wellbeing through work and retirement transitions in mature age: understanding pre-post and retrospective measures of change.

The capacity to measure change is essential in examining successful adaptation to ageing. Few studies measuring change have compared findings using pre-post approaches (employing difference scores) with those from retrospective approaches (employing self-ratings). Where this has occurred, differences have been attributed either to ceiling and floor effects or to the operation of social comparison (Choi, 2002, 2003). Our study compared pre-post and retrospective measures of change in health, health behaviors, and wellbeing over periods of 1 and 3 years among retirees. Retrospective measures were found to be more positive than pre-post measures. This discrepancy was associated with floor and ceiling effects and with a robust self-image, but not with recency, social comparison, or social desirability response sets. Pre-post difference scores have limitations as indicators of change, particularly where ceiling effects operate. A retrospective perception of improvement, combined with deterioration in scores, may result from successful psychological adaptation as people grow older.

Lesbian parents negotiating the health care system in Australia.

Twenty Australian lesbian-parented families were interviewed in multigenerational family groups about the interface between their public and private worlds. Experiences of the health care bureaucracy were difficult, whereas many participants found individual providers to be approachable and caring. Three strategies were used for disclosure of their sexual orientation to health care providers: private, proud, and passive. Influences on the strategy used included family formation, role of the non-birth parent, geographic location, and expected continuity of care. Parents displayed a high degree of thoughtful planning in utilizing their preferred disclosure strategy in order to optimize safety, particularly for their children.