Theresa Lorraine Scott

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic brought substantial social and emotional stressors, alongside widespread messaging that framed older adults as particularly vulnerable. It remains unclear whether these conditions were associated with hostile and benevolent ageist perspectives of older people. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the factors associated with ageism, perceived changes in emotional coping, and the attitudes and experiences of Australian residents toward older adults. Methods: Ageism, aging expectations, and contact quality with older adults in the context of COVID-19 were explored using an online, cross-sectional correlational study design, participants responded to both established and novel measures for these factors. Results: A total of 273 Australian residents completed the online study (aged 19–82 years, M = 40.73, SD = 14.74). There was no association between emotional coping and ageist beliefs. More positive aging expectations were related to lower hostile ageism, but not benevolent ageism. Positive contact with older adults was linked with lower hostile ageism and higher benevolent ageism, while negative contact showed the reverse pattern. Conclusion: The current study suggests that ageist messages portraying ‘vulnerability’ reflected commonly held attitudes toward older Australians during the pandemic and highlights the importance of considering both the quality and nature of intergenerational contact when developing ageism-reduction strategies. Potential explanations, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

In Indonesia, intergenerational co-residence in later life is widely regarded as a normative arrangement, yet older adults’ own motivations for and reservations about living with their adult children remain underexamined. This study explored how older Indonesian adults perceive co-residence with their adult children and what considerations shape their preferences. Using a vignette-based qualitative design, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 older adults (aged 60 to 78) who were themselves living in multigenerational households. Data were analysed using a hybrid inductive-deductive thematic analysis. When responding to the vignette, most participants (13 of 20) expressed a preference against prioritising co-residence, despite all currently living with an adult child. A recurring motivation was their wish not to become a burden on their children and to preserve their independence. Five factors shaped these perspectives: financial circumstances, relationship quality, filial responsibility, health-related housing suitability, and marital status. By showing that older adults embedded in a strongly pro-co-residence culture nonetheless voice reservations about it and prioritise not becoming a burden on their children, this study challenges the assumption that normative co-residence reflects older adults’ own preferences and suggests that concerns about autonomy and dependency shape later-life living arrangements beyond individualistic Western settings.

Approximately 70% of older adults in Indonesia live in multigenerational households with their adult children, yet little is known about how adult children experience co-residence. This study developed and validated the Indonesian Intergenerational Co-Residence Scale for Adult Children (IICS-AC), addressing the absence of instruments that systematically capture these experiences. Item generation drew on a systematic review and in-depth interviews with 30 adult children, followed by expert evaluation through the Delphi method. Data were collected from 408 adult children across 25 provinces and analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The results supported a refined four-factor, 31-item structure: filial responsibility, parent-child relationship, marital status, and financial circumstances, with acceptable model fit indices (RMSEA = 0.057, CFI = 0.918, TLI = 0.911, SRMR = 0.046). The four-factor structure was further supported by comparison against alternative one-factor and higher-order models. Subscales demonstrated strong internal consistency, although test-retest analysis indicated weaker temporal stability over a one-month interval. Initial validity evidence was obtained through convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity analyses, with the total score showing positive correlations with life satisfaction and negative correlations with depression. The IICS-AC offers a contextually relevant tool for assessing adult children’s experiences of intergenerational co-residence in Indonesia, with potential applications for research, practice, and policy, while further work is needed to establish its stability over time.

Background: Ageing populations will increase demand for blood‐products and donors who supply them. While blood collection agencies (BCAs) typically target younger people to expand supply, recruiting donors aged 50+ is also a potential solution. However, few studies focus exclusively on this group. We aimed to explore motives, barriers, costs, benefits, and BCA support and engagement of donors and non‐donors aged 50+. Methods/Materials: Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 31 donors who began or returned to donating (after >25 years) aged 50+, and 28 non‐donors aged 50+ who had never donated or not donated in >30 years. We used reflexive and codebook thematic analysis of data. Results: Seven themes were generated: awareness of donation, accessibility and ease of donation, health and donation, age or life‐stage and donation, helping self and others, social connections, and inspiration and incentives. Donors discussed their growing capacity for donation while others planned donation around busy lifestyles. Awareness of the need for blood motivated donors, alongside their desire to give back (i.e. reciprocity). Donors uniquely discussed their health privilege enabling donation and feeling obligated to help others less healthy. Non‐donors lacked information and awareness about donating. Donation sites were viewed as inaccessible and family/work priorities limited capacity. Non‐donors uniquely discussed being ‘too old’ to donate. They felt unwanted by and invisible to BCAs who do not target them in messaging/campaigns. Conclusion: To ensure sustainability of blood supplies and avoid marginalising those aged 50+, BCAs should be more inclusive with greater awareness raising, targeted marketing, and maximising accessible donation opportunities.

Indonesia’s growing older population and the persistence of intergenerational co-residence highlight the need for context-specific assessment tools. Yet, there remains a gap in published instruments that evaluate these experiences for older adults and their adult children. This study investigated whether valid and context-specific questionnaires could be developed to assess these experiences through expert consensus. An initial pool of 119 items for older adults and 127 items for adult children was generated from in-depth interviews exploring motives for co-residence. The items addressed domains including filial responsibility, family relationships, marital status, financial circumstances and health-related considerations. For older adults, this included relationship quality with family members and housing suitability, while for adult children, it included parent-child relationships and adaptability to health and household conditions. The Delphi method was then used, with experts in family studies and geropsychology evaluating the clarity and relevance of these items across two rounds. The process refined the instruments, in the form of questionnaires, to 84 items for older adults and 82 items for adult children. The resulting instruments are the first context-specific tools designed for assessing intergenerational co-residence in Indonesia, offering a resource for researchers and practitioners to study family living arrangements.

Despite widespread use in social research, the vignette development often lacks systematic frameworks linking empirical evidence to narrative construction. This methodological gap is particularly problematic when studying sensitive topics across cultural contexts, where scenarios must balance realism with authenticity. This study presents a three-phase framework for developing and validating generation-specific vignettes through participatory stakeholder collaboration, using Indonesian intergenerational co-residence decisions as a methodological case study. The framework integrates: (1) translation of systematic review findings into vignette components reflecting key decision-making factors; (2) participatory scenario construction with real-time collaborative revision; and (3) two-stage validation through focus groups (n = 6 older adults; n = 6 adult children) and individual interviews (n = 4) assessing multidimensional reflection, balanced engagement, and clarity. Results demonstrated differential validation outcomes across generations: the older adults’ vignette required no revisions and elicited practical problem-solving responses, whereas the adult children’s vignette underwent modifications to clarify parental motivation, sibling proximity, and narrative sequence. Both vignettes successfully prompted consideration of interacting factors–health, finances, kinship, emotions, and cultural expectations–validating their capacity to elicit complex decision-making processes. The validated framework offers researchers a replicable, evidence-based approach for developing culturally grounded vignettes. While demonstrated through family co-residence research in Indonesia, the three-phase process provides transferable guidance for studying sensitive topics requiring stakeholder-validated scenarios across diverse populations and research contexts.

Dementia is a cluster of disorders affecting a growing number of people around the world, with consequent disruption to the lives of those diagnosed and their loved ones. The impact of dementia on families has been widely documented; however, this is often done through the lens of caregiver burden. In contrast, the present research explores the wants and needs of couples living with dementia in terms of their shared leisure activities. Five Australians living with dementia and their partners participated in recorded semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis of transcribed interviews produced four main themes and 15 subthemes highlighting this population’s needs and values regarding leisure. Themes included, “increased awareness of how dyads spend their time”, “awareness of dyadic changes within the relationship”, “appreciation of fulfilling moments”, and “person with dementia’s engagement/activity moderation and support by care partner”. The results support existing research including changes to relationship dynamics and lifestyle post-diagnosis. This research indicates the importance of leisure interventions that focus on improving socialisation for people with dementia and their partners and supports increased opportunities for quality time together.

Depression is a complex and widespread mental health condition affecting over 280 million people globally, yet access to timely diagnosis and personalised treatment remains limited. This study explores the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to develop a prescriptive analytics framework for supporting mental health decision-making. Using a dataset of 2,556 anonymized datapoints, the study evaluates multiple machine learning classifiers to identify depression risk, benchmarked by accuracy, F1 score, and AUC metrics. Logistic Regression emerged as the most balanced and interpretable model, achieving an accuracy of 97.3% and an AUC of 99.9%, with the lowest false-negative rate—crucial in a clinical support context. The study then introduces an ensemble modeling framework based on stratified Logistic Regression models, enabling consensus-based predictions and enhanced reliability. Beyond predictive analytics, the framework facilitates prescriptive insights by identifying minimal, targeted lifestyle changes likely to shift individuals from high to low depression risk. Feature importance was established using statistical and effect size measures, guiding personalized intervention suggestions with practical interpretability. The study highlights relationships among key features such as academic pressure, work hours, job satisfaction, and financial stress, revealing compound intervention opportunities. Despite limitations related to dataset provenance and generalizability, the framework demonstrates promising utility in non-clinical mental health contexts and forms a tractable foundation for future deployment in professional settings. These findings underscore the potential of AI/ML to augment mental health care by delivering scalable, explainable, and data-driven decision support tools aimed at improving patient outcomes through personalized, prescriptive strategies.

Driving cessation is one of the most challenging life transitions, associated with multiple negative consequences for individuals living with late-onset dementia. This paper extends the literature as to date there is no published review that details the experiences of people living with young onset dementia (“YOD”). A comprehensive search of the literature was conducted using the scoping review methodology. Ten studies were included for full text review of 1634 initially identified through database searching. The results of the included articles indicated areas of concern for people living with YOD and their family members including, loss of independence; role change; threat to self-identify; feelings of isolation, grief; acceptance; predictors of driving cessation. There is a lack of robust evidence related to driving cessation and the experiences of people living with YOD. No published paper reported psychosocial interventions specifically targeted at supporting persons with YOD through driving cessation.