Melissa K. Weinberg

Laughter and humor therapy in dialysis.

Laughter and humor therapy have been used in health care to achieve physiological and psychological health‐related benefits. The application of these therapies to the dialysis context remains unclear. This paper reviews the evidence related to laughter and humor therapy as a medical therapy relevant to the dialysis patient population. Studies from other groups such as children, the elderly, and persons with mental health, cancer, and other chronic conditions are included to inform potential applications of laughter therapy to the dialysis population. Therapeutic interventions could range from humorous videos, stories, laughter clowns through to raucous simulated laughter and Laughter Yoga. The effect of laughter and humor on depression, anxiety, pain, immunity, fatigue, sleep quality, respiratory function and blood glucose may have applications to the dialysis context and require further research.

Intergenerational Effects of the Holocaust: Subjective Well-Being in the Offspring of Survivors

Offspring of Holocaust survivors have been the subject of much research into how traumatic events affect future generations. This study considers the effects of the Holocaust on the well-being rather than trauma of offspring of Holocaust survivors in Australia. 285 Jewish participants completed a questionnaire to measure components of subjective well-being. Analyses revealed that offspring of Holocaust survivors reported lower general positive mood than non-OHS. This result was limited to offspring of Holocaust survivors with two survivor parents. These findings imply that effects of the Holocaust are transmitted to nonclinical offspring of Holocaust survivors and that the number of survivor parents is a crucial determinant in understanding these transgenerational outcomes.

THE HAPPINESS AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING OF PEOPLE ON HAEMODIALYSIS.

BACKGROUND Happiness is a construct that has been gaining more prominence in both social and health research. The measure of happiness, subjective well-being, has not been rigorously explored in the end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) population. OBJECTIVES To measure the subjective well-being of people with ESKD on haemodialysis and to compare their subjective well-being with a general population cohort. DESIGN A cross-sectional design measuring the subjective well-being of an Australian haemodialysis cohort compared with a non-dialysis age-matched cohort. PARTICIPANTS The haemodialysis cohort (N = 172), recruited from eight dialysis centres, had a mean age of 64.04 years (SD = 14.82) and included 104 males (60.5%) and 66 (38.4%) females. The non-dialysis cohort (N = 200), randomly extracted from the 2012 Australian Unity Wellbeing Index, had a mean age of 63.97 (SD = 14.68) and included 101 males (50.5%) and 99 females (49.5%). MEASUREMENT Subjective well-being was measured using the Personal Wellbeing Index. This seven-item measure rates satisfaction with life in seven domains: standard of living, health, achievements in life, relationships, safety, community and future security. RESULTS The haemodialysis cohort reported lower general life satisfaction, life achievements, relationship and personal safety compared to the general population. There were no differences between the two groups for health, community and future security. Standard of living and satisfaction with life achievements carried higher importance in subjective well-being compared with health satisfaction CONCLUSION Subjective well-being can be an important indicator of peoples life quality to be considered by clinicians and nephrology researchers in future studies.

If you’re happy and you know it: Music engagement and subjective wellbeing:

Experiencing and engaging with music have been fundamental to all societies across the ages. This study explores the connection between habitual music engagement and subjective wellbeing. Subjective wellbeing (SWB) comprises individual evaluations of life satisfaction, and is internationally regarded at policy and government levels. The present study uses data gathered in 2014 as part of the 31st survey of the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index to provide insight into the relationship between music engagement and SWB. A stratified random sample of 1,000 participants was interviewed via telephone. The findings revealed that engaging with music by dancing or attending musical events was associated with higher SWB than for those who did not engage with music in these forms. The findings also emphasised the important role of engaging with music in the company of others with regard to SWB, highlighting an interpersonal feature of music. The study provides an overview of the general relationship between music and SWB at a population level, by contrast to most research in the area that has focused on evaluating clinical interventions involving music. The insight gained from these findings can be used to inform future interventions and to better understand how music is involved in emotional regulation.

The Distribution of Quality of Life in Australia

Australians enjoy a relatively high degree of life quality as judged by comparative international statistics. This chapter reviews the distribution of Quality of Life in Australia by considering both the objective and subjective wellbeing (SWB) of the Australian population. The review begins with an overview of objective circumstances, including income, social support, and life expectancy. It also considers the distribution of trust. Two extant measures of the subjective wellbeing of Australians are then reviewed, and it is revealed that SWB has demonstrated remarkably stable properties over the last 12 years. This chapter provides some insight into the properties of the measures and the theoretical construct of Subjective Wellbeing to explain fluctuations that occur for different components of SWB. Further, this chapter considers the demographic characteristics that are common to Australians with higher and lower SWB and offers a basis of research upon which future measures of population wellbeing can be founded.

Multi-item Measurement of Subjective Wellbeing: Subjective Approaches (2)

This chapter comes in two parts. The first presents a theoretical view of subjective wellbeing (SWB), which sets the parameters and expectations for part two, which contains an evaluation of SWB scales. The theoretical view describes SWB homeostasis, set-points for SWB, and Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood). The selection of scales was made on the basis of simplicity. Each scale comprises a list of personally-relevant items with a response mode of ‘satisfaction’. It is predicted that such scales cannot reliably support more than one factor due to shared variance from HPMood. The primary criteria for the evaluation are parsimony and the robust demonstration of factors, if this is part of the scale’s construction. It is found that no scale with this simple construction can reliably support more than one factor, thus confirming theory. Two scales best meet the evaluation criteria as the Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Personal Wellbeing Index.

Resilience and Subjective Wellbeing: A Psychometric Evaluation in Young Australian Adults

Objective Resilience is an important and underdeveloped area of research, and there are few studies that describe levels of resilience among youth samples. A major aim of this research is to explore the utility of an adapted form of the 10‐item Connor Davidson Resilience Scale and to clarify the association between this construct and a robust measure of subjective wellbeing. Method A representative sample of 1000 Victorians aged 16–25 years participated in a telephone interview comprising the modified 10‐item Connor Davidson Resilience Scale and the Personal Wellbeing Index. Results The modified 10‐item Connor Davidson Resilience Scale demonstrated adequate inter‐item reliability and factored as intended. A moderate, positive correlation was found between the modified 10‐item Connor Davidson Resilience Scale and the Personal Wellbeing Index. Significance testing revealed group differences for gender, age, and annual household income. The results are also used to establish theoretical “normal” ranges for resilience in Victorias youth population. Conclusion The results from this study support the modified 10‐item Connor Davidson Resilience Scale as a valid and reliable measure of young peoples resilience using traditional psychometric tests. Moreover, this is the first study to describe the levels of resilience among Victorian youths and to evaluate these data alongside a robust measure of subjective wellbeing. The implications of the findings for government policy and service delivery are discussed.

Using dynamic factor analysis to provide insights into data reliability in experience sampling studies.

The past 2 decades have seen increasing use of experience sampling methods (ESMs) to gain insights into the daily experience of affective states (e.g., its variability, as well as antecedents and consequences of temporary shifts in affect). Much less attention has been given to methodological challenges, such as how to ensure reliability of test scores obtained using ESM. The present study demonstrates the use of dynamic factor analysis (DFA) to quantify reliability of test scores in ESM contexts, evaluates the potential impact of unreliable test scores, and seeks to identify characteristics of individuals that may account for their unreliable test scores. One hundred twenty-seven participants completed baseline measures (demographics and personality traits), followed by a 7-day ESM phase in which positive and negative state affect were measured up to 6 times per day. Analyses showed that although at the sample level, scores on these affect measures exhibited adequate levels of reliability, up to one third of participants failed to meet conventional standards of reliability. Where these low reliability estimates were not significantly associated with personality factors, they could—in some cases—be explained by model misspecification where a meaningful alternative structure was available. Despite these potential differences in factor structure across participants, subsequent modeling with and without these “unreliable” cases showed similar substantive results. Hence, the present findings suggest typical analyses based on ESM data may be robust to individual differences in data structure and/or quality. Ways to augment the DFA approach to better understand unreliable cases are discussed.