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Background Meaning in life serves as a protective mechanism for coping with persistent, often distressful symptoms in patients with heart failure. However, meaning in life and its associated factors are not adequately explored in patients after acute hospitalisation for heart failure. Aims To explore the associated factors of meaning in life in patients with heart failure from acute hospitalisation to 3 months post-discharge. Methods A total of 103 hospitalised patients with heart failure in Northern Taiwan were recruited using a longitudinal study design and interviewed with structured questionnaires including meaning in life, symptom distress, care needs, and social support at hospitalisation, 1 month and 3 months post-discharge. Results A total of 83 patients completed the 3 months follow-up. The presence of meaning in life significantly increased from hospitalisation to 3 months post-discharge. Decreases in care needs (B =-0.10, P = 0.020) and social support (B =-0.18, P = 0.016) from hospitalisation to 3 months post-discharge were significantly associated with an increase in the presence of meaning in life, while a decrease in social support was associated with an increase in the search for meaning in life (B =-0.17, P = 0.034). Conclusion Care needs and social support were pivotal factors for developing meaning in life for patients with heart failure. Assessments of care needs and social support might help strengthen their meaning in life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: We assess the association between marital quality and both the risk of developing diabetes and the management of diabetes after its onset in later life. Method: We use data from the first two waves of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project to estimate regression models with lagged dependent variables. The sample includes 1,228 married respondents, among whom 389 were diabetic. Those with either a reported diagnosis or with HbA1c > 6.5% are identified diabetic. We categorize diabetic respondents into three groups: controlled, undiagnosed, and uncontrolled diabetes. We conduct factor analysis to construct positive and negative marital quality scales. Results: For women, an increase in positive marital quality between Waves 1 and 2 is related to a lower risk of being diabetic at Wave 2, net of diabetes status at Wave 1; surprisingly, for men, an increase in negative marital quality between Waves 1 and 2 is related to both a lower risk of being diabetic at Wave 2 and a higher chance of controlling diabetes at Wave 2 after its onset. Discussion: Our results challenge the traditional assumption that negative marital quality is always detrimental to health and encourage family scholars to distinguish different sources and types of negative marital quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Prior U.S. population studies have found that childhood adversity influences the quality of relationships in adulthood, with emerging research suggesting that this association might be especially strong for black men. We theorize psychosocial and behavioral coping responses to early life adversity and how these responses may link early life adversity to strain in men's relationships with their indeterminate partners and children across the life course, with attention to possible racial variation in these experiences and implications for later life well-being. Method: We analyze in-depth interviews with 15 black men and 15 white men. We use qualitative analysis techniques to connect childhood experiences to psychosocial processes in childhood and behavioral coping strategies associated with relationship experiences throughout adulthood. Results: Black men describe much stronger and more persistent childhood adversity than do white men. Findings further suggest that childhood adversity contributes to psychosocial processes (e.g., diminished sense of mastery) that may lead to ways of coping with adversity (e.g., self-medication) that are likely to contribute to relationship difficulties throughout the life span. Discussion: A life course perspective directs attention to the early life origins of cumulative patterns of social disadvantage, patterns that extend to later life. Our findings suggest psychosocial and behavioral pathways through which early life adversity may constrain and strain men's relationships, possibly contributing to racial inequality in family relationships across the life span. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]