The need for an integrated biopsychosocial approach to research on successful aging
Article Abstract:
Successful aging is defined not by longevity alone but also by sufficient well-being (in multiple domains) to sustain a capacity for functioning adequately in changing circumstances. The determinants of such well-being and functional status are manifold and include the genetic endowment, physical environment, social environment, population and individual responses to challenges, the occurrence of disease, availability and effectiveness of health care, and personal prosperity. In the face of such complexity, scientific approaches to the phenomena associated with successful aging should be appreciative and wholistic as well as reductionistic. Such a "natural science" of aging will be required to uncover and use information about linear, cause-and-effect phenomena, as well as about higher-order emergent patterns that are of relevance to the health of elderly persons, such as "resilience" and "generativity." Taken as a whole, this multimethod research agenda will truly express an integrated biopsychosocial approach to research on successful aging.
Publication Name: Annals of Internal Medicine
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0003-4819
Year: 2003
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Patient-Identified Needs for Hormone Replacement Therapy Counseling: A Qualitative Study
Article Abstract:
Despite the fact that many medical organizations have recommended that women be counseled about postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the issues which concern the women who are patients are not being addressed. In analyzing transcripts of interviews with 26 women who had received an initial prescription for HRT, women had between six and 24 issues which concerned them as integral to their ability to make a decision as to whether or not they wanted HRT. These included their physician's opinion (96%), media reports (81%), and experiences and opinions of friends (77%) but counseling recommendations address none of these concerns.
Publication Name: Annals of Internal Medicine
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0003-4819
Year: 1999
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
The virtue of qualitative and quantitative research
Article Abstract:
Both quantitative and qualitative research methods have value in modern scientific studies. Many studies may be best served by using both approaches. Quantitative studies evaluate questions that need concrete, measurable, and predictable answers. This research approach has its roots in Newton's methods. Qualitative studies explore questions that will result in more descriptive and possibly controversial answers. This research approach has its roots in the Renaissance. Modern researchers use similar benchmarks to review the quality of studies that use either approach.
Publication Name: Annals of Internal Medicine
Subject: Health
ISSN: 0003-4819
Year: 1996
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
- Abstracts: New international ethical guidelines for research involving human subjects. Institutional review boards: a crisis in confidence
- Abstracts: Brief interventions for alcohol problems in hospital settings. Alcohol-related health problems in general hospitals
- Abstracts: A healing regime. Treating postural hypotension. Falls in older people: taking a multidisciplinary approach
- Abstracts: Case-finding instruments for depression in primary care settings
- Abstracts: The man with stars inside. Support for national health insurance among doctors. Keeping faith: ethics and the physician-writer