Psychological distress around menopause.

The authors sought to identify a subgroup of women who are likely to experience psychological distress in the period around menopause. A sample of 189 women (mean age=49.49) was selected from the general population and rated for menopausal status, menopausal symptoms, depression, anxiety, perceived control, body image, and sex role. Menopausal symptoms were not found to discriminate between pre-, peri-, and postmenopausal women. Factor analysis of the symptoms yielded a specific somatic factor that correlated with menopausal status but not with psychological variables and a nonspecific psychosomatic factor that correlated with psychological variables but not with menopausal status. This suggests that psychological distress during the menopausal transition may indicate a personal psychological or physiological vulnerability rather than a specific reaction to the menopausal events.

Attitudes towards hormone replacement therapy among middle-aged women and men.

OBJECTIVES: To survey the attitudes of middle-aged women and men towards HRT and associated issues. Men were included because of the possible influence of their attitudes on womens decisions to use HRT. METHODS: Two-hundred women and 311 men, (not wife and husbands), between 45 and 55 years of age, from a general population sample, were queried about their attitudes towards menopause and HRT and on their knowledge about side effects of HRT. RESULTS: The men had a more negative attitude towards HRT than the women. Two-thirds of the subjects, mostly women, considered menopause to be a medical issue and not a developmental stage in the life cycle. The most mentioned benefits of HRT were the prevention of osteoporosis and cardiopathy, and the disadvantages were "cancer" and "side effects". The concept of menopause as a medical entity was significantly correlated with a positive attitude towards HRT and whether the responder currently used HRT. CONCLUSIONS: The attitudes of most women and men towards menopause and its psycho-social meaning play a vital role in the decision of whether women should start HRT. Education on HRT should be extended to include men who seem to have a more negative attitude towards HRT and are less informed about its benefits. Our results indicate that a positive attitude to HRT is associated with factual knowledge about its benefits and disadvantages, while a negative attitude is based more on emotional arguments.

The contribution of personal resources to physical and mental health: looking into age and gender effects.

In this study, a model that specified the effects of socioeconomic and psychological resources on physical and mental health was investigated. It was hypothesized that (a) both kinds of resources would affect physical and mental health more strongly in older than in younger adults, and that (b) socioeconomic resources would exert stronger effects in men, whereas psychological resources would exert stronger effects in women. Data were collected in an Israeli national sample. Structural modeling analyses indicated that the model fit the data. A comparison of 4 groups of participants (2 age groups--18-39 and 40-84--and both genders) showed that, for men, the respective effects of socioeconomic and psychological resources on physical and mental health were strong in the older, but not in the younger, group. For women, socioeconomic resources had nonsignificant effects, whereas psychological resources had strong effects on mental health in both age groups; psychological resources also had a moderate effect on physical health in the older group. The results suggest that the contribution of personal resources to health is regulated by the joint impact of age and gender, presumably involving shifting roles and vulnerabilities of men and women across the life span.

Subjective well-being among Holocaust survivors: an examination of overlooked differentiations.

This study addressed the issue of adjustment among Holocaust survivors by multidimensional assessment of subjective well-being (SWB). Participants were Israeli Holocaust survivors incidentally included in a life-span study (Group 1; n = 466) or purposely approached for studying Holocaust survivors (Group 2; n = 178). Comparison participants had immigrated to Israel before World War II, with their parents either undergoing (Group 3; n = 270) or not undergoing the Holocaust (Group 4; n = 388); other comparison participants had immigrated after the war with parents not undergoing the Holocaust (Group 5; n = 166). Results showed that Group 1 scored lower than Group 2, mainly in positive affect. Group 1 scored lower than Group 4, and to a lesser extent also lower than Groups 3 and 5, mainly in aging-related themes of SWB. The study suggests that long-term effects of the Holocaust on the survivors' SWB are traceable but require a differential approach to the study groups and to the facets of SWB.

A nation's response to attack: Israelis' depressive reactions to the Gulf War.

We examined Israelis' reactions to the Gulf War and SCUD missile attacks. Four national samples of Israelis (n = 3,204) were interviewed as to depressive mood on four occasions--prior to the Gulf Crisis, as the war approached, during the SCUD missile attacks, and after cessation of hostilities. There was an expected increase in depressive mood during the period of SCUD missile attacks and a quick return to base-line levels following the hostilities. Less educated and older individuals reported higher base-line levels of depressive mood and were at higher risk for clinical depression. Women and men did not differ in depressive mood before or after the SCUD missile attacks. However, women experienced a marked increase in depressive mood when the SCUD missile attacks occurred.

Measuring depressive mood in elderly Israeli: reliability and validity of the Depression Adjective Check Lists.

To establish the psychometric properties of the state form of the Depression Adjective Check List (DACL) with elderly Israeli, a 1981 Hebrew version of the DACL by Lomranz, Lubin, Eyal, and Medini, along with the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale and Cantril's Self-anchoring Striving Scale, were administered to 86 independently functioning elderly persons (35 men and 51 women) living in a home for the aged. Reliability estimates (alphas and test-retest) were moderate to high; validity estimates (concurrent and construct) were again moderate to high. It was concluded that the state form of the Depression Adjective Check List is suitable for use with elderly Israeli.

Subjective well-being and its domains across different age groups: an Israeli sample.

Subjective well-being (SWB) across the life span was studied in a representative Israeli sample by a national survey of 1183 subjects, ranging from 18 to 80 years of age. Subjects were given "life scales", on which they rated their SWB in their present life, as well as their satisfaction regarding health, relations with friends, family, work, economic status, sense of personal achievement, and sense of control. The results indicate that: (a) SWB is negatively correlated with chronological age; (b) the relative strength of most of SWB domains changes in the different age groups; (c) SWB is best explained by different sets of domains in different age groups; and (d) economic status is the strongest domain, accounting for SWB in 6 out of 8 age groups. Explanations for these results confronted the developmental view of changing tasks across the life span vs cohort-based differences between the age groups. The decreasing number of domains that account for SWB variance with progressing age, as well as some unexpected findings with regard to the oldest age group (71-80) are also discussed.

The measurement of perimenstrual distress.

This study was undertaken to explore whether the implicit requirement of phase comparison in menstrual research influences the data obtained. One hundred fifty Israeli women responded to the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire in an altered procedure. They rated their experience of behaviors and feelings during the nonmenstrual phase. Later, on a separate form, they rated their experience of the same behaviors and feelings during the menstrual and premenstrual phases. With this altered procedure, nonmenstrual distress scores were consistently higher than the perimenstrual scores. This pattern of results is the reverse of what most studies using the questionnaire have shown and does not seem to justify treating the perimenstrual period as especially problematic.

Indoor and outdoor activities of aged women and men as related to depression and well-being.

This article examines the relations between reported level of activity and measures of affect in old people exploring possible sex differences. It was hypothesized that these relations are mediated by the satisfaction from the specific activity. The sample consisted of fifty-four women and forty-five men, ranging in age from sixty to eighty, functioning normally in the community. A questionnaire assessed participants' levels of indoor/outdoor activities. Participants rated their satisfaction for each of these activities. Negative affect was measured by Zung's Self-Rating Depression Scale, and positive affect was measured by Bradburn's Well-Being (Affect-Balance) Scale. For male respondents, results showed significant negative correlations between depression and both activities, and significant positive correlations with respect to well-being. Significant positive correlation was obtained only between well-being and outdoor activity for female respondents. When satisfaction from the specific activity was controlled for, only two correlations remained significant in the male participants, lending partial support to the hypothesis. A multiple regression analysis revealed reported levels of activity could predict both depression and well-being for men much better than for women, whereas satisfaction from activity could do that much better for women than for men. Discussion deals with the sex differences regarding the meaning of activity in old age and its implications for affect. The differentiation between kinds of activity as well as measures of affect is also referenced.

The meaning of time-related concepts across the life-span: an Israeli sample.

Three-hundred-thirty-eight Israeli participants rated five time-related concepts on Semantic Differential Scales. Participants constituted six, age-based, groups, representing different life stages: childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, adulthood, late adulthood, and old age. The concepts rated were: time, past, present, and future. In addition, each group rated its own life stage. Results were analyzed in terms of the relationship between age and attributed meaning of these concepts, as denoted by the three Semantic Differential dimensions: evaluation, potency, and activity. The results indicate that people of different ages differ significantly in the way they construe most of the time-related concepts. Past ratings show a significant tendency to increase with progressive age, while future ratings decrease with progressive age. The ratings of present tend to remain stable across the life-span, and the ratings of life stages are significantly lower in older groups as compared to the younger ones. Results are discussed in light of developmental processes, the role that meaning of time-related concepts play in psychological adjustment, and methodological aspects.

A Hebrew version of the Depression Adjective Check Lists.

In order to develop a Hebrew version of the Depression Adjective Check Lists (DACL) for use in research, the lists were translated by linguists and the adequacy of the translations determined. Reliability (split-half, alternate form, internal consistency, and test-retest) of translated lists E, F, and G were sufficiently high in the case of the first three and sufficiently low in the case of test-retest reliability of the state DACL. Concurrent validity was determined in three separate samples: correlations with (a)a 7-point self-rating scale of depression, (b)the MMPI-D Scale, (c)the Bradburn Scale of Psychological Well-being, the Cantril Self-anchoring Striving Scale, and the Katz Social Adjustment Symptom Subscale, and demographic variables. Magnitude of correlations were sufficiently high and in the expected direction. Also, correlations with part scores of the Bradburn Scale of Well-being demonstrated the discriminant validity of the Hebrew version of the DACL.

Norms for the revised Hebrew version of the Depression Adjective Check List.

In order to reduce the readability level of the Hebrew version of the DACL, a new list of words with high frequency of usage in the Hebrew language was created from the translations of E, F, and G. Ninety-four Ss completed the revised form and the translated standard form E in randomized order; the correlation was .90 (p less .001). Split-half reliability for the revised form was .83 (N = 1,230, p less than .001). The revised DACL was included in a national probability sample survey (N = 1253; 699 females and 544 males). T score and percentile norm distributions are skewed toward the left. Raw scores above 20 are rare.

Aspects of differential role perception of Israeli medical school students.

Attitudes of first year Israeli Medical School students are investigated using the Semantic Differential technique to differentiate their perceptions of the roles of doctor, patient and the mentally ill. Students also selected from among thirty-four behavioural traits those roles considered most characteristic of doctor and/or patient. A high degree of certainty and of role stereotyping is found of doctor image. This may be associated with past experiences as child-patient, with idealizations and identifications and with future aspirations. There is less consensus with the role of patient but there are clear attitudinal boundaries among students between roles. The doctor is perceived as an idealized, if authoritarian, person meeting with a rather negatively but more flexibly perceived person of the patient. Behavioural traits selected by the students are consonant with this finding. The results are discussed in the context of identification patterns and the educational process.